CEDAR CITY, Utah -- The Southern Utah Thunderbird men's basketball team won their ninth game in a row on Saturday afternoon inside the America First Event Center, as they knocked off the Idaho Vandals 83-67.
With the victory, the Thunderbirds are now 9-1 on the season and undefeated in Big Sky play with a 4-0 mark.
After breaking the school record for consecutive victories on Thursday, the T-Birds extended that record to nine on Saturday.
"It's hard to win one Division I game, it really is," SUU head coach Todd Simon said following the contest. "And we've been on the other end searching for wins, so we don't take these for granted, but we're always in the process of trying to get better. We had some guys step up today that we needed, and our zone that we've been working on behind closed doors has proved to be better, and that's been a couple good developments for us."
For the second straight game the T-Birds jumped out to a sizable lead in the opening half, as they built their lead to as many as 12 and led by 10 at halftime.
Over the opening nine minutes of the second half the Vandals climbed back, and took a two point lead with 10:24 to play.
As the contest headed down the stretch, the Vandals hung around, but they put the Thunderbirds on the free throw line twice in the span of a minute with two technical fouls. The T-Birds took advantage, and increased their lead to double digits.
As the closing seconds ticked off the clock the T-Birds built up to their highest lead of the night, and claimed a 16 point victory at home.
Tevian Jones finished the game as SUU's leading scorer, as he dropped in 30 points. He shot 6-of-11 from three and finished 6-of-6 from the free throw line.
This was the second contest this season that Jones has hit the 30 point threshold.
John Knight III was the second leading scorer on the team, finishing with 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field. He also had five rebounds and three assists.
Both Harrison Butler and Maizen Fausett finished the game with 11 points.
Southern Utah will head out on the road next weekend, as they'll take on the Eagles of Eastern Washington in Cheney. EWU has missed their last two weekends of Big Sky Conference action due to COVID-19 related issues within the program.
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