HELENA, Mont. - The Carroll College Men's Basketball team topped Montana Western 82-62 Saturday night at the PE Center to earn a share of the Frontier Conference title, the second in two seasons, a first-round bye in the Frontier Conference Playoffs and home-court advantage through to the championship game.
"I'm just so impressed by the guys' moxie, their togetherness, their ability to persevere, keep growing, pull for each other, scrap, execute, man, they're going to be able to draw upon that for the rest of their lives," head coach Carson Cunningham said. "Their attitude and approach have been very moving to see firsthand. We're grateful for it as staff, and we're happy to be a part of it and see them perform like that."
The Saints led wire-to-wire and looked the part of a championship team Saturday.
Ryan Imhoff notched a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds.
Ife Kalejaiye had 15 points,
Matt Wymann scored 14 and
Oliver Carr was big off the bench going 5-5 from the field for 12 points in just 14 minutes.
Lorel Johnson tallied seven assists. The Saints shot 58.2 percent (32-55) from the field.
Carroll took control early, building a 7-2 lead with 17:41 left in the first half. The two teams traded buckets, but Carroll slowly extended its lead to 39-25 with 1:47 to play before the Bulldogs cut it to 41-29 at the break.
Western never cut the lead to single digits in the second half. Carroll extended the edge over the 20-point mark with 12:11 left to play on a Wyman bucket. Western cut the deficit to 16 twice, but the Saints kept on the pressure and closed out the 20-point win.
The Carroll defense was nearly as impressive as the offense. Western is the best scoring offense in the Frontier and averages over 92 points a game. Saturday's 62 points is the smallest output of the year and only the second time that the Bulldogs scored less than 71 points, the other being Carroll's 77-63 win over UMW on Jan. 4.
With the first-round bye in hand, the Saints can recover before preparing to play the lowest remaining seed on Friday, March 2, but Cunningham is sure to have his team back at work with the conference title on the line.
"The biggest thing for us is we continue to grow as a team," he said. "We're super excited to repeat and we're thrilled to be a one seed. I don't even know if these guys know how hard it is to do what they've just done. Repeat and get the No. 1 seed two years in a row. They'll be able to draw on the process for the rest of their lives. Now we take a deep breath because that was a wild and crazy ride. That was really fun."
