RIVER FOREST, ILL. – The Concordia University Chicago men's basketball team took the home court in front of dozens alumni in the second annual LegaCUC Men's Basketball event. The Cougars dominated the Eagles and jumped to a 4-3 overall record and 2-1 in conference.
LegaCUC EVENT
The Cougar men's basketball team invited all alumni to return to Geiseman Gymnasium this morning to join the team for their shootaround. After the shootaround, the alumni put together the first actual alumni game that brought together generations of CUC Men's Basketball. The alumni was then honored and celebrated at the game with a halftime recognition for their years of dedication to the program.
INSIDE THE BOX
- Sean Beckman (Hoffman Estates, Ill.) led the charge picking up two career-highs with 18 points and 12 rebounds in his second double-double in the maroon and gold.
- Jacob Collicott (Lafayette, Ind.) added in 12 points, eight rebounds, five assists, and four steals.
- Joel Watts (Homewood, Ill.) packed his statline in numerical order picking up five assists, four points, three steals, and two rebounds.
HOW IT HAPPENED
FIRST HALF
The Cougars won the jumpball, but lost possession of an early travel call. Fresh off the turnover, Watts poked the ball away and found an easy bucket in the paint to put the Cougars on the board first.
The Eagles would equalize right away with a layup of their own, but a retaliation three from Williams would put the Cougars up by three. After a fast-paced back-and-forth, Watts would find Beckman in the paint and put them up by five. With the Eagles continuing to claw at the Cougars, an 8-2 run in favor of Edgewood would steal the lead from CUC for the first time of the day. With a fiery offense blazing, the Cougars went on a run of their own capitalized by points from
Tallis Lowery (Fairview Heights, Ill.) and
Ryker Johnson (Fond du Lac, Wis.) and eventually put themselves up by seven.
The Eagles would be forced to take their first timeout of the game less than ten minutes in after a lockdown Cougar defense halted all offensive production. Fresh out of the timeout, the Cougars utilized the momentum and layups from
Aaron Brown (Joliet, Ill.), Johnson, and Collicott would extend the Cougar lead to 13.
With nearly four minutes with no field goals on either side, the Cougars finally broke through and jumped ahead by 15 with back-to-back buckets from Williams.
With the Cougars tacking on four points off of free throws while the Eagles continued to score, the final possession of the half was in the hands of the Cougars. With Watts driving down the right side of the land and making a baseline kick for a corner three from
AJ Willard (Germantown, Wis.), the Cougars would close the half with the 11 point advantage.
SECOND HALF
Fresh into a new 20 minutes, the Cougars one again struck first and Beckman started his hot half with an early three. The Eagles would answer back right away with a layup of their own, but an immediate response three from Beckman from the wing halted any momentum from the Eagles.
With Collicott collecting a defensive rebound, the Cougars would go on a terror on their offensive side and, after a missed shot and offensive rebound, Beckman would find his way to the charity stripe and force an Eagle timeout. With another two in the scorebook for Beckman, Collicott and Williams joined the second half scoring party and each added a bucket of their own before Beckman took over once again and tacked on yet another two points. Collicott would have his hand from deep and drain it to give the Cougars a 17 point advantage with less than 15 minutes to play in the game. A 5-0 run from the Eagles would be broken up by a crafty drive from Lowery who then secured his first points of the half.
With nothing but momentum on their side, the Cougars continued to run away with the game as Willard, Watts, Beckman, and Johnson all put up buckets in less than six minutes of time to keep the 18 point lead.
To round out Beckman's monstrous day, the senior hit the dagger three from the wing off a baseline inbound with one second on the shot clock to give the Cougars the final push they needed to close the game with the 74-61 victory.
CUC continues NACC play on December 14
th as they travel to take on St. Norbert College in a 2024 NACC Playoff rematch. Tipoff is set for 1:00 pm and coverage can be found at cucougars.com/coverage.
