KIRKSVILLE, Mo.—The Truman Men's Basketball team hosted the Rockhurst Hawks in a rematch of Saturday's game, which the Hawks won in Kansas City. But Monday night the Bulldogs defense limited the Hawks to just 33.3% shooting from the field and under 20% from three to stifle the Hawks in an 88-62 win. Keaton Mitchell scored a career high 16 points in 19 minutes off the bench, while Masen Miller led the Bulldogs with 20 points. Elijah Hazekamp led the Bulldogs with nine rebounds and added 18 points, and Hunter Strait led with seven assists.
Eric Northweather got the Bulldogs on the board with a three point play on the first possession of the game. It was the start of a marathon of fouls in the first half, which sent the Bulldogs to the line 18 times in the first half, which the Bulldogs converted on 12 of. Despite jumping out to an 8-2 lead early, the Bulldogs let the Hawks come back and tie it at 11 with 13:36 to go in the half. Mitchell got his first basket to break the tie and put Truman back ahead. Rockhurst briefly took the lead at 16-15, but Cade McKnight scored six straight to put Truman back ahead 21-16. As the half went on, Truman continued to expand their lead and with 4:02 left in the half went ahead double digits as Mitchell hit two foul shots to put Truman up 31-21. With 37 seconds left, Mitchell's big night continued as he drained a three to put Truman up 37-26, which would be the score at the break.
After a three pointer from Rockhurst to open the half, Truman went on a 10-0 run to blow the game open. Northweather started the run with a jumper, a three point play, then Hazekamp hit a triple and McKnight finished the run which put Truman up 47-29. Later in the half Miller and Mitchell hit back to back threes to give Truman their largest lead of the game at 22 points (61-39) with 12:05 left. Rockhurst had life for a brief moment with a 7-0 run to cut the Truman lead to 15 points, then a 9-0 run built the lead up to 24 points at 70-46. Mitchell hit another three and then culminated the run going 2-2 from the line with 8:26 to go. As the half went on, Truman continued to lead by double digits and ended the game on a 7-0 run with five points from Miller and a final basket from Josh Ollendieck to finish out the game.
The Bulldogs will go to Edwardsville for the rest of the GLVC tournament, with a matchup against UIndy looming in the quarterfinals on Friday at 8:30 pm. It will be the third straight year that the Bulldogs and Greyhounds will have met in the GLVC tournament.
