Upper Iowa men's basketball team outscored the Lakers of Grand Valley State University 15-4 over the final five minutes of the second half of Friday's opening round game of the St. Joseph College Thanksgiving Classic in Rensselaer, Ind. The huge run allowed the Peacocks to not only make up a seven-point deficit, but also claim a six-point victory. The 76-72 win pushed UIU to 2-3 on the season, while GVSU falls to 3-3.
The Peacocks led for the majority of the first half, but the Lakers were able to knot the score at 39-39 heading into halftime. Grand Valley State took advantage of UIU's first half turnovers to score 21 points off the giveaways. The Lakers took the lead early in the second half and slowly began to build on it. The margin hit a high of 7 points on two occasions; the second-of-which came with 5:03 to play in the game.
Trailing 68-61, the Peacocks snapped off a 10-0 run over the next three and a half minutes to take a three-point lead. The run was fueled on offense by a pair of three-pointers from
Josh Weeber, who had five triples in the game, two free throws from
Jordan Hay, and a trifecta from
Luke Lenhart, his third. Defensively, Upper Iowa held their opponents to just 2-4 shooting over the final five minutes and turned the Lakers over three times in the waning minutes.
Carson Parker salted the game away with four free throws in the final nine seconds to preserve the lead, 76-72, to the final buzzer.
UIU's bench came up big in the victory with 31 points thanks in large part to Weeber, who scored 20, and
Kam Rowan, who added 9. Weeber had it dialed in from long range with 5 three-pointers; Rowan and Lenhart each knocked down 3 from deep. As a team, UIU hit 13 of their 22 deep bombs and added 17 points at the free throw line.
Parker scored 14 and added 3 assists, while
Jimmy Roth scored 13 and handed out 5 assists. With the threes falling, Hay turned his attention elsewhere leading the team in rebounding with 8 and adding a game-high 5 steals.
Upper Iowa will face the host Pumas of St. Joseph's College in tomorrow championship game at 8 p.m. SJC defeated Salem International 122-80 in the second opening round game on Friday.
