Huskies shut down Cleary, Crookston for fifth straight victory

Friday, January 3

St. Cloud, Minn.

7:30 p.m.

St. Cloud State

8-5,5-2NSIC

University of Minnesota Crookston

7-6,3-4NSIC

Minn.-Crookston

St. Cloud St.

Anthony Roberts dunks in the second half of the Huskies win over Minnesota-Crookston.

Photo by: Kylie Macziewski

Huskies shut down Cleary, Crookston for fifth straight victory

1/3/2020 10:16:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

ST. CLOUD, MINN. – If coaches are looking for defense tips, they should call Matt Reimer and the St. Cloud State University men's basketball team.

For the majority of the 2019-20 season, St. Cloud State has been one of the top defensive teams in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC), as the team has held opponents to just 66.8 points per game this season. The Huskies simply needed their offense to catch up. In its first game of 2020, St. Cloud State put its defense and offense on display, as the team used a second half surge to down the University of Minnesota-Crookston 72-57 to extend its win streak to five games.

The Huskies actually trailed the Golden Eagles at the half, as they walked into the locker room down 30-29. That single point deficit could have been much worse, as St. Cloud State trailed Minnesota-Crookston by as many as 12 points with 8:39 remaining. In the opening 10 minutes of play, the Huskies had no answer for NSIC top-scorer Harrison Cleary, as he scored 10 points in the opening 10 minutes to give the Golden Eagles a 28-16 advantage.

That was when St. Cloud State mounted its comeback, and the team did it without leading-scorer Trevon Marshall (Evanston, Ill. / Evanston Township). The senior was forced to spend the majority of the first half of the bench, as he was called for two quick fouls to open the game. In fact, it was freshman Anthony Roberts (Chicago, Ill. / Oak Park) who led the Huskies comeback, as he tallied a team-leading eight points and seven rebounds to help St. Cloud State cut the deficit to 30-29 at the half.

From there, the Huskies wasted no time taking a lead of their own, as Ilya Tyrtyshnik (Kyiv, Ukraine / Kyiv Specialized School #49) gave the team its first of the game at 32-30 with a three-pointer 50 seconds in. Roberts would then score his 10^th point of the game to bolster St. Cloud State's lead to four points before a three-pointer by Minnesota-Crookston cut the lead back to one point at 34-33.

That single point was the closest the Golden Eagles would come to catching the Huskies, as the home team would go on an 11-2 scoring run in the next two minutes, extending their lead to 45-36. Andrija Blatancic (Bergen, Norway / Academy of Arts) would give St. Cloud State its first double-digit lead at the 12 minute mark, a lead from which the Huskies would never look back, as a basketball by Daniel Geistler (Norwalk, Iowa / Norwalk) sealed the 72-57 win over the Golden Eagles.

As previously mentioned, St. Cloud State's defense was absolutely stifling, particularily in the second half of play. In the final 20 minutes alone, the Huskies held Minnesota-Crookston to a .290 shooting percentage, as the Golden Eagles made just nine shots from the floor on 31 attempts. St. Cloud State also held the NSIC and all of Division II's leading scorer Cleary to just 20 points and a season-low .350 shooting percentage while allowing Minnesota-Crookston to nab just 30 rebounds and eight assists.

Roberts was the Huskies leading scorer Friday evening, as he tallied 20 points to go along with his team-leading 13 rebounds for an impressive double-double. The freshman from Chicago, Illinois shot 8-11 from the floor including a 1-2 clip from three-point range and a 3-4 mark from the charity stripe. Marshall finished his evening with 14 points and a team-leading seven assists, while Blatancic tallied 11 points for St. Cloud State.

With the win, the Huskies overall record improves to 8-5 and the team is 5-2 in NSIC play. St. Cloud State will return to action Saturday afternoon, as the team hosts Bemidji State University at 5:30 p.m. in Halenbeck Hall.