LIBERTY, Mo.--The fifth ranked Truman Men's Basketball team won their 11th straight game Saturday as they defeated William Jewell 76-70 for their second dramatic win over the Cardinals this season. In Kirksville the Bulldogs held on 82-77 in a game that went down to the final minute. Cade McKnight led the Bulldogs with 25 points, and passed the 1,000 career points mark in doing so. He now has 1,017 career points. Turner Scott scored 18, leaving him 32 points shy of 1,000 career points, and was one off the Truman single game record in steals with six. Dylan Peeters notched another double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds.
The first half was close throughout, with the teams being tied six times. At the 5:30 mark of the first half, Truman held a seven point lead following a layup from Alex McQuinn. WJC answered with a three pointer to come back within four at 27-23, and Truman answered with two foul shots from McQuinn and a jumper from Scott to take their largest lead of the half at 31-23. WJC answered with seven straight to pull within one at 31-30, capped off with a three from Eysan Wiley. Scott drained a jumper to put Truman back up three, then a trey from Wiley tied it up at 33. At 1:37 a foul shot from WJC gave them a one point lead, answered by Scott to put Truman back up. Two free throws put WJC back up, then with seven seconds to go McQuinn made a jumper to put Truman up 37-36; which is how the half would end.
McKnight got the second half scoring started with a three pointer at 19:12, putting the Bulldogs up four. At 16:58 he made the first of two foul shots to hit 1,000 career points. This is the beginning of a 12-0 run that gave Truman their biggest lead of the game at 54-40. McKnight scored eight points during the run. WJC brought it back down to ten, but Truman got back up to 14 ahead after a layup from Scott to make it 58-44 with 12:45 to go.
Over the next 1:37, WJC went on a 7-0 run to cut the Truman lead in half. Truman fended off the Cardinals attempted to get closer for a couple minutes, but with 5:24 to go a three pointer from WJC's John Zimmerman made it a single possession game at 64-61; and then at 4:22 Jordan Jermain tied it at 64. McKnight got back to back buckets to put Truman back up four, and then Hunter Strait made back to back threes to push TSU's lead to 74-69 with 1:19 to go. From there, Truman was able to hold off the Cardinals for the rest of the game and take the six point win.
The Bulldogs will be back home to finish the regular season as they take on Rockhurst this coming Thursday and Southwest Baptist on Saturday. Tip off will be at 7:30 against RU and 3:00 against SBU.
