Box Score (html)
WEATHERFORD, Okla. – Combining one of the top offensive performances of the season with a lockdown defensive effort can lead to a large margin of victory as the Bulldog basketball team found out on Thursday night. SWOSU built a 24-point halftime advantage on the rival Rangers of Northwestern and extended that after the break for a blowout 77-46 victory in front of a raucous crowd at the Pioneer Cellular Event Center.
SWOSU used a 26-0 run, spanning better than eight minutes, to break the game open in the early going. Northwestern took a 6-4 lead just minutes into the game before
Trent Washington sparked the Bulldogs game-breaking run, scoring 12 consecutive points at one stretch before capping the run with a 3-pointer that made it 30-6 with exactly 9:00 remaining in the half.
The Bulldogs were not done, however, pushing their lead to 44-14 at the under-four media timeout as
Emeche Wells converted a conventional three-point play with 3:02 to play in the half. Northwestern scored the final six points of the first half, however, leaving SWOSU with a 44-20 lead at the break.
While the scoring slowed over the first few minutes of the second half, the Bulldogs gave no ground.
Ayo Ojo brought the largest crowd at the Pioneer Cellular Event Center this season their biggest highlight of the night in the opening minutes with a windmill slam dunk in transition off a feed from
Richard McCalop. The slam was just one of several highlight plays by Ojo, who finished with a mammoth double-double after totaling 15 points and 17 rebounds to go along with three blocked shots and two assists.
Washington kept up his hot shooting touch after the break as he racked up a career-high 30 points on 11-of-18 shooting from the field, including 5-of-10 shooting from 3-point range. The 30 points is the most by a Bulldog this season and the first 30-point effort by a SWOSU player since
Rod Camphor erupted for 36 points against Arkansas-Monticello in the opening round of the GAC Tournament in 2013.
It was Wells who hit his second 3-pointer of the night to give the Bulldogs their largest lead at 66-26 with 11:40 to play before SWOSU was held scoreless for almost four minutes. NWOSU rallied to get the lead under 30 for a brief stretch before the Bulldogs got their final basket of the game, another tip-in slam from Ojo with 2:34 to play, making it 77-44.
Wells finished with 17 points, three rebounds, three assists, two blocked shots and one steal in 23 minutes while not turning the ball over in the game. His efforts, along with that of Ojo, helped the Bulldogs set a new season-high with seven blocked shots while controlling the painted area. SWOSU outrebounded the Rangers by a wide margin – 55-36 – behind the 17 from Ojo and nine from
Martell Collins, who was held scoreless in the game.
"The difference tonight was our aggressiveness at the offensive end and rebounding," SWOSU Coach
Bob Battisti said after picking up his first win against his former school. "We had a great crowd tonight and I thought our guys did a nice job of keeping them in the game by hitting some shots and getting fast break points, which was an emphasis of ours. I thought a lot of our guys played really well, but hats off to
Trent Washington and
Ayo Ojo, they were both very productive at both ends of the court."
The victory is the fourth consecutive for the Bulldogs (15-11, 9-10 GAC), who clinched their spot in the Great American Conference Tournament next weekend in Bartlesville with the victory. SWOSU concludes the regular season on Saturday afternoon with Senior Day against Southeastern Oklahoma State, a game that will tipoff at 3:00 pm.
