SILOAM SPRINGS, Ark. – In college basketball, when a coach finds a mismatch that favors his ballclub, he will attempt to exploit that mismatch at every opportunity. On Saturday afternoon for the Mid-America Christian University men's basketball team, that mismatch was named Therence Mayimba.
MACU (12-6, 6-4 SAC) continually fed Mayimba in the paint in the second half, and the Evangels were able to pull away from the host John Brown University Golden Eagles (10-8, 5-5 SAC) as a result, taking the 88-74 win to stay within a game of the lead in the Sooner Athletic Conference.
The game started tentatively, with the teams combining for only eight points in the first four minutes, but MACU quickly built a moderate lead. The Evangels put together an 11-2 run to take a 13-6 lead with 13:32 to play in the opening frame, but JBU had an answer. A 10-2 spurt for the Golden Eagles helped them reclaim the lead at 16-15 with just under 11 minutes left, and with 10:11 to play, the score was knotted at 18. The Evangels spent the rest of the first half slowly drawing away from the Golden Eagles, leading by as many as seven, and at intermission, MACU led 42-38.
Keyshawn Perkins pushed MACU's lead to eight with a bucket at the 17:02 mark of the second half, but JBU had one more run in them. The Golden Eagles got a 3-pointer from Marquis Waller with 14:23 to play that cut the MACU lead to 55-52, but MACU answered with a 9-0 run that was capped by a triple from Justin Bogle that put MACU up 64-52 with 10:45 left on the clock. In the final minutes, The Evangels exploited the mismatch that Mayimba created, going to him on six different possessions and leading to 12 points as MACU pulled away to the 14-point win, 88-74.
Mayimba led all scoreers in the game with 23 points, and he added 11 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season. Perkins added 20 points in the win, and Bogle (15) and Andre Horne (11) were also in double-figures in the game. Perkins also dished out a game-high five assists. As a team, MACU made 26-of-45 (57.8%) shots from the floor, including 7-of-19 (36.8%) from long distance. At the foul line, MACU was excellent, making 29-of-35 (82.9%) charity tosses.
MACU will return home on Thursday night when they host the Texas Wesleyan University Rams (13-6, 7-3 SAC), one of three teams tied for the SAC lead just one game ahead of MACU, who leads a 3-way tie for fourth. MACU defeated the Rams 77-71 in the team's first meeting this season. Tip-off is scheduled for 8 p.m.
