BOURBONNAIS, Ill. --- Olivet Nazarene University used a dominating inside game to get the best of the University of St. Francis men's basketball team Wednesday night, defeating the Fighting Saints 93-68 in a Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference matchup at McHie Arena.

The host Tigers (14-3, 8-1 CCAC) outscored USF 66-28 in the paint and out rebounded the Saints 50-23 with 15 of the boards coming on the offensive glass. That led to a 22-5 scoring advantage on second-chance points for league leading Olivet Nazarene.

St. Francis (8-6, 4-5) trailed by only nine points at the half, 40-31, but Olivet Nazarene used a 61.8 percent shooting clip in the second half (21-of-34) to outscore the Saints 53-37. For the game, the Tigers shot 54.3 percent (38-of-70), while USF finished at 41 percent (25-of-61).

St. Francis opened the contest scoring 10 of the game's first 16 points before Olivet Nazarene made eight of its next ten shots from the field in putting together an 18-3 run and a 24-13 advantage. The Saints would never get closer than six points the rest of the evening and trailed by double digits the entire second half after the Tigers scored the first four points after the intermission.

Olivet Nazarene's Tyler Schmidt led all scorers with a career-high 35 points on 15-of-19 shooting from the field. Alex Gross just missed a triple double for the Tigers with his 22 points, 17 rebounds, and eight assists.

Lewis Holey and Darius Wright tied for team high scoring honors for the Saints with 13 points each.         

Up Next
The Saints continue conference play on Saturday when they host Cardinal Stritch University in a CCAC matchup at the Sullivan Center beginning at 3 pm.

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