Box Score The saying goes, defense wins championships. Well, the Upper Iowa Peacocks haven’t won a championship yet, but they do have the pieces in place on the defensive end to dominate teams, night-in and night-out.

That held true in Friday night’s NSIC contest as the Peacock defense handled the visiting Minnesota, Crookston Golden Eagles inside Dorman Gymnasium in a 78-51 rout.

“I thought our guys did a great job coming out and establishing our defense,” head coach Brian Dolan said. “We haven’t always been like that, but that’s definitely the bread-and-butter of this year’s team.”

But it wasn’t just the defense that was firing on all cylinders. The Peacocks dished out 18 assists and shot a lights-out 55 percent from the floor as a close first half turned into a double-digit lead for UIU in the second period.

“The better we play defense, the better we run our half-court offense,” Dolan continued. “I think it was a direct correlation of why we were good on the offensive end tonight.”

Reshirt-junior David Smith has shown he has a knack for good defense in the past and his relentlessness was rewarded when he entered the starting lineup against UMC.

“It doesn’t matter who starts,” Dolan said afterwards. “They set the tone, though, and I thought that carried through all forty minutes.”

The first couple of minutes were back and forth as the teams felt each other out. UIU would take a 24-20 lead halfway through the first half on a Jordan Hay bucket. UMC answered back by holding UIU scoreless over the next four minutes, which led to 7-0 run for the Golden Eagles, giving them their largest lead of the night, 27-24, with 6:43 left in the first period.

UMC would earn only three more points before halftime, while the Peacocks exploded for 14 and took a 38-30 lead into the break. #Jake Hughes led the Peacocks at intermission with eight points on 4-of-5 shooting.

“We were moving the ball and everyone was playing unselfish,” the senior guard said. “My teammates were finding me good spots to score the ball.”

While an eight-point lead was nice, the Peacocks demanded more – specifically on defense.

“We talked about turning up the pressure on everything we were doing,” Dolan said. “In the first half, we had good pressure – we just weren’t doing it for the entire twenty minutes.”

The second-half changes resulted in seven steals coming from six different players, while UMC shot just 1-of-5 from beyond the arc, compared to 5-of-8 from 3 in the opening stanza.

“The first half was back and forth and then in the second we locked it down,” Joey Woods said. “If we come in tomorrow and play the way we played in the second half from the start and throughout the whole game, then it should be a positive outcome for us.”

Woods made his impact, not as much in scoring, but in every other category – something he’s struggled to do in the past.

“With our team this year, we have a lot of guys who can score points,” he said. “I just try to contribute – in whatever way I can. Each night, you never know who’s going to do what, whether it’s scoring, rebounding or handing out assists.”

The redshirt junior finished with just four points on 1-of-3 shooting, but had a team-high seven rebounds, seven assists and four steals.

“This is something he’s been battling for two years – when he’s not scoring, [it has been hard for him to] still play a positive game,” Dolan said. “He was phenomenal tonight. I’m so proud of him that he could get three shots up tonight and still do all those other things.”

Woods started the second half with back-to-back assists. The first went to Sam Elgin for a layup and the second went to Tucker Wentzien for an emphatic dunk. One minute later, Woods earned a steal that led to another dunk – this one coming from Elgin.

The aggressive defense and the smart passes led to a 14-4 run for UIU to start the second half. Hay added to the big plays by beating everyone down the floor on a UMC fast break and stuffing the ensuing shot against the glass. Wentzien converted that possession into another dunk to give UIU a 16-point lead, 50-34.

“The crowd really got us going and gets us pumped up,” Hughes said. “When we see teammates make cool plays, we want to make them too. We really feed off the crowd’s energy and they were great tonight.”

The Peacocks would keep their lead to double-digits for most of the second half, despite struggling from downtown. Over the past two games, UIU is just 4-of-27 from beyond the arc.

“There are always times when people miss shots or the ball won’t fall,” Woods admitted. “But if they keep their head straight and keep shooting the ball, eventually they’re going to go in.”

UIU didn’t need 3s, though. They had 56 points in the paint against the Golden Eagles and18 second-chance points to go along with 21 fast-break points.

“We were really pushing the ball in transition and we got easy buckets tonight,” Hughes said.

The 78-51 victory ties Dolan's previous high of 12 wins, coming back during the 2009-10 season and gives the Peacocks a 12-5 overall record and an 8-3 mark in conference play this season.

The Peacocks will now try to start a new win streak tomorrow night as they host the 8-7 Beavers of Bemidji State at 8 p.m.

“We know Bemidji is a really good team and we need to be prepared for every game,” Hughes said. “Saturday night is going to be a grind. It’s going to be a physical game and we need to go out there with that mindset to really shut them down.”