CEDAR CITY, Utah -- The Thunderbird men's basketball team moved back above .500 on Saturday night inside the America First Event Center, as they knocked off the Vikings of Portland State 83-69 to mark their third straight victory. With the win, the T-Birds are 8-7 overall, and 3-3 in the Big Sky Conference after dropping their first three league contests.
"I think the most important thing was that the guys played with poise," SUU head coach Todd Simon said. "Obviously they're a pressure, defensive team. They pick up full for 40 minutes, and I thought our guys did a good job of maintaining their poise against the press and getting into the offense."
The Thunderbirds started the contest extremely hot, jumping out to an 11-2 lead before four minutes had even ticked off the clock. SUU held the lead for a significant amount of time, but the Viking started crawling their way back and eventually tied the contest at 21-21 with 5:44 left to play in the opening half.
The two teams went back-and-forth until half time, where the T-Birds led 36-33.
In the second half the Thunderbirds didn't relinquish the lead until more than 10 minutes had been played, and the Vikings held a one point advantage. Over the final 10 minutes, however, the momentum swung all Southern Utah's way as they outscored the Vikings 29-16 to pull away in the contest.
The Thunderbirds took advantage of the Viking's 15 turnovers in the second half, scoring 22 points off of their mistakes.
SUU had a very balanced offensive output on Thursday night, as they were led in scoring by Cameron Oluyitan who had 18 points. Jacob Calloway finished with 16, while Andre Adams poured in 14 and Brandon Better accounted for 13. Harrison Butler was the fifth Thunderbird in double figures tallying 11 points.
Coming into tonight's contest PSU's Holland Woods was averaging 15 points per game, and the Thunderbirds held him to just seven in the contest.
The Thunderbirds will be back on the floor inside the America First Event Center on Saturday at 1 p.m. when they host the Sacramento State Hornets.
"They're a completely different style of play," Simon said about the Hornets. "It's one day prep, so we'll flip around and get ready for them. But we've got to keep finding this energy we have now."
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Read all about the Thunderbirds on www.suutbirds.com.
Individual game tickets for the 2018-19 Season are available at
www.tbirdtickets.com or at the America First Event Center Ticket Office.
Plays of The Game
