Wheaton, Ill. – The Wheaton men's basketball team, ranked eighth in this week's D3hoops.com Top-25 poll, used an impressive second-half performance to earn an 84-73 win against Millikin (11-11, 4-9 CCIW) on Saturday night in King Arena. The Thunder basketball program honored its seniors prior to tipoff tonight as part of "Senior Night" activities. Wheaton is now 19-3 on the season and remains alone atop the CCIW standings with an 11-2 record in conference play.
Thunder guard Tyson Cruickshank had an epic performance tonight with a "double-double" as he scored a game-high 19 points, distributed a career-high 11 assists and grabbed a game-high nine rebounds. Cruickshank shot 6-of-9 from the field tonight, including 3-of-6 behind the three-point arc.
With his effort tonight, Cruickshank moved up from 13th to 10th on Wheaton's all-time scoring list. He now has 1,607 career points and is just the 11th player in program history to reach 1,600 career points. Cruickshank surpassed Rob Willey (1,591), Robin Cook (1,594) and Nyameye Adom (1,603) to move into 10th place on the scoring list.
TJ Askew scored 17 points with five rebounds and two assists. Eli Considine tallied 16 points, making a pair of three-pointers. Andrew Williams scored 15 points, with eight rebounds. Nate Sock and Nick Schiavello each scored seven points off the Wheaton bench, with Schiavello grabbing five rebounds.
Wheaton shot 45.1% (25-of-51) from the field, including 28.6% (8-for-28) behind the three-point arc. The Big Blue posted a 44.9% (31-of-69) field goal percentage, including 23.1% (3-of-13) from three-point range. The Thunder shot 71.4% (30-for-42) at the free throw line, with a 66.7% (8-for-12) effort at the charity stripe for the guests. Each team collected 37 rebounds tonight, with a 9-6 edge on the offensive glass for Millikin.
The first half opened sluggishly as the matchup was tied 13-13 through the game's first nine minutes. With 9:30 remaining in the opening half, Millikin tallied a basket to give the guests a 19-16 lead. The Big Blue jumper sparked a 15-5 run for the guests that gave them an 11-point lead at 32-21 with 2:45 remaining in the first half. Williams and Askew each had a basket in the final 1:30 of the half and the Wheaton defense held Millikin scoreless in that stretch to trim the Big Blue lead to seven as the guests lead 32-25 at halftime.
Cruickshank scored eight points, with three rebounds and two assists in the first half. Demarcus Bond led the guests with eight points and five rebounds in the first 20 minutes.
Millikin led 34-27 with 18:05 remaining in the second half when Wheaton began a 25-7 run that gave the hosts a 52-41 lead with 10:50 remaining in the game. From that point on, Wheaton continued to maintain a double-digit lead for much of the remainder of the game. The Big Blue attempted to foul late into the contest and cut into the Wheaton lead, but never got closer that eight points in the second half.
Askew led all players in the second half with 13 points. Cruickshank scored 11 points, with nine assists and six rebounds in the second half. Considine added 11 points with 10 for Williams. JT Welch led Millikin with 11 second-half points.
Wheaton continues its three-game homestand on Wednesday night as the Thunder host North Central at 7:00 p.m. in King Arena.