Whitman Whitm 9-10,7-4 NWC

Willamette Willam 6-14,3-9 NWC

Whitman Whitm

9-10,7-4 NWC

Final

Feb. 06, 2022

Willamette Willam

6-14,3-9 NWC

Score By Periods
Team	1	2	F
Whitman Whitm	59	40	99
Willamette Willam	34	49	83

Summary
Box Score

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | 2/6/2022 5:22:00 PM

Men's Basketball Uses First-Half Explosion To Rout Willamette

SALEM, Ore. - Nikola Trifunovic scored a team-best 21 points, Xzavier Lino added 20 more and the Whitman College men's basketball team used a 59-point first half to rout Willamette 99-83 in Northwest Conference action on Sunday afternoon.

The 59 points was the highest single-half total of the season for the Blues who righted the ship after losses on Friday and Saturday night. The win puts Whitman up two games on George Fox with four games to play for the fourth and final spot in the Northwest Conference Tournament.

The Blues shot 56% for the game and were 11-17 in three pointers in their dominant first half. The Bearcats nearly doubled up Whitman in points in the paint but that didn't nearly make up for Whitman's hot shooting for much of the night. Walter Lum and Jai Deshpande posted 18 and 12 points, respectively, and Grant Hunt chipped in nine points and handed out a game-high seven assists.

Cedric Coward provided the spark for Willamette, dropping game highs of 27 points and 13 rebounds.

Deshpande and Hunt kicked off the game with a pair of three pointers with Deshpande tacking on another to put the Blues up 13-12 with 16:09 to play in the first half. The hot shooting continued as the Blues put together a 16-2 run to go up by 12 points. Lino and Crump both dialed long distance in the run with Lino punctuating the spurt with a dunk to put his team up 26-14 with 12:57 remaining.

Pape later knocked down a pair of shots and Trifunovic did the same as the lead swelled to 20 points just inside of 10 minutes to play. Inside of two minutes, Lino hit from three and Deshpande nailed a jumper to send the Blues to halftime up 59-34.

The Blues never truly let Willamette in the game in the second half. The lead tinkered in and around 20 points with Trifunovic and Lino nailing back-to-back late three pointers to close the door on any hope of a Bearcat comeback.

Whitman next heads to Tacoma where it will face Puget Sound on Friday, Feb. 11 and Pacific Lutheran on Saturday, Feb. 12.

#GoWhitman

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