ST. LOUIS – The Southern Indiana men’s basketball team showed no effects of a week off in semifinal action of the 2011 GLVC Basketball Tournament as the second-seeded Eagles topped No. 3 seed Drury on Saturday afternoon, 88-74. With the victory, the Eagles will advance to Sunday’s championship game versus the winner of the Bellarmine-Kentucky Wesleyan contest.
Senior forward Mohamed Ntumba and junior guard Brandon Hogg each posted a game-high 25 points to pace the Eagles (24-4) on the afternoon.
Southern Indiana opened the contest with an 18-9 run to set the pace. Ntumba and C.J. Trotter combined for 11 in the run highlighted by Ntumba converting in transition at the 14:55 mark.
Ntumba put the Eagles up 29-19 with 10:15 to play in the first half with a bucket in the paint before Drury (22-7) made a 13-6 run over the next five minutes to cut the score to 35-32. Southern Indiana responded to take a 48-38 lead at the break behind five points from Trotter.
Southern Indiana pushed the lead to as many as 14 in the first six minutes of the second half and Drury never got closer than five the rest of the way.
The Eagles controlled the paint throughout the contest and finished with a 54-26 advantage. Ntumba did most of the damage inside and finished the contest with 25 points on 12-of-19 shooting and 11 rebounds.
Hogg was 9-of-12 from the field and contributed to the Eagles’ strong shooting effort. The team shot 51.6 percent (33-64) on the afternoon and
Southern Indiana outrebounded the Panthers 38-33 and forced Drury into 16 turnovers on the day.
Drury was led by Dennon Mitchell who had a team-high 19 points on 6-of-13 shooting. The Panthers had four in double figures in all but managed to shoot just 26.7 percent from behind the three-point line (4-15).