CEDAR CITY, Utah – After a foul-filled, scrappy first half in which the Thunderbirds never led, the Southern Utah University men's basketball team came alive in the second half to earn a 64-51 victory over Sacramento State Thursday night in the America First Event Center.

The win lifted SUU to 9-4 overall on the season and a perfect 3-0 in Big Sky Conference play. It also marked The T-Birds' 20th-straight victory at home. With the loss, the Hornets dropped to 4-6 for the year and 0-3 in league competition.

"We know conference play isn't always going to be a masterpiece, but we also know that we can get a lot done defensively even when we're not making shots," said SUU head coach Todd Simon. "I thought we were a good defensive team today, and that kept us in it until we found a rhythm. We scored 41 in the second half, which is where we want to be. We know shots are going to fall, it's just a matter of time. It was a good, hard-fought win."

Despite a slow start and tough first half offensively, the T-Birds kept up the effort on the defensive end of the floor all night, forcing Sacramento State into 14 turnovers against five assists. Comparatively, Southern Utah gave away only six turnovers the entire night and dished out 13 assists as a team. The Thunderbirds also owned a 3-1 advantage in blocked shots and came away with seven steals to the Hornets' three.

Tevian Jones led the way for SUU in the scoring column with 19 points on the night, including three makes from 3-point range. Jones also pulled down eight rebounds for the T-Birds. Despite fouling out in the second half, Maizen Fausett also gave Southern Utah a big lift with 14 points and nine rebounds. Though relatively quiet statistically, John Knight III gave SUU plenty of energy in the second half with an electric dunk to open the half, and a huge block to close the game.

After struggling to get anything going offensively in the first half, Nick Fleming threw a pass to the corner where Jones was waiting all along to knock down a three as time expired and pull the Thunderbirds within two at the halftime break. Jones' connection from distance sparked a 14-3 run for SUU which put the T-Birds in the lead for the first time. Southern Utah would never trail again in the game.

The Thunderbirds used a combination of outside shots and points in the paint to grow their lead as large as 12 with 8:49 remaining in the game. Sacramento State clamped down on defense for the next few minutes and trimmed the deficit to seven, but could get no closer as Aanen Moody and Jones knocked down a pair of 3-pointers to rebuild the lead and put things out of reach.

Southern Utah will welcome in 2022 Saturday when it hosts Northern Colorado on New Year's Day. The Thunderbirds and Bears tip-off at 7:00 p.m. MT with the game available to watch on ESPN+.

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