BOX SCORE

Austin, Texas – Greg Brown led five Tornado players in double figures with 15 points off the bench to propel the Concordia University Texas men's basketball team to a convincing 99-71 victory over Southwestern in its season opener on Friday, Nov. 19 at the Concordia Field House. The Tornados, who scored 41 points off of 37 Pirate turnovers, built up a double-digit advantage before the midway point of the first half and never looked back.

Leading 54-36 at the break, Concordia (1-0) kept its foot on the gas pedal and scored seven of the first nine points to start the second half. Tayler Jacobs canned two consecutive five goals to cap the run and put the Tornados up by a 61-38 score. The hosts extended their lead to a game-high 30 points at 99-69 with under a minute remaining on a layup by Chris McDermott before the Pirates' Nicholas Atiee canned a jumper on the other end in the waning seconds to seal the final outcome.

“We want to pressure for 94 feet and really make teams work, and we feel like we have enough bodies to do that for 40 minutes,” said Stan Bonewitz after winning his first season opener in seven tries as the Tornados' head coach by utilizing a full-court press throughout the game. “I was proud of the fact that the guys played hard, but there are still some things we need to work on. We were fouling too much defensively. However, I still thought our effort was very good. If we can build on this, I feel we have enough depth to be competitive [this season].”

The Tornados set the tone early when Jacobs fed Steven Bob-Nabena for an alley-oop dunk just seven seconds into the game. After the teams changed leads multiple times, Jacobs put the Tornados ahead for good with 17:25 left in the opening half when he drove in for a layup to spark an 11-2 run. A layup by Josh Johnson with just over 11 minutes left put the hosts up by double figures for the rest of the game, while the lead ballooned to 21 points in the frame when Darien Harris nailed a free throw just before the recess.

Brown also registered four rebounds and one steal to go along with his 15 points on 5-for-8 shooting to pace Concordia. Gregston Westry finished with 13 points and a game-high three steals, while Jacobs contributed 12 points and six assists. Darius Anderson and Connor Davenport scored 10 points apiece. Southwestern (0-2) was led by Logan Hurley, who just missed a double-double with 27 points and nine boards.

Concordia begins a two-game road trip when it visits St. Edward's on Monday, Nov. 22 at 8 p.m.