Unlikely stars shine in Bruins' dominant 109-74 win at TCC

PALOS HEIGHTS, Ill. -- Ryan Reed scored a season-high 21 points as the Bellevue University men's basketball team turned in their best all-around performance of the season in a 109-74 win over Trinity Christian College in their final non-conference game of the season on Saturday afternoon at the Trolls' DeVos Gymnasium.

The Bruins improved to 14-11 with the win while TCC dropped to 5-8 with their second-straight defeat.

All nine Bruins who saw action scored at least eight points. Jemeil King (15), Matt Blaney (13), Vaj Rice (12), Justin Motley (11), Eric Pierce (11), and Charlie Barnes (10) all joined the aforementioned Reed in double figures.

The scoring totals marked season-highs for Reed, Blaney, Rice, Barnes, and Martis Johnson, who scored eight on the afternoon.

Bellevue began the game with an aim to go inside and get quality looks, both of which proved successful. The Bruins' first five field goal attempts were layups as were their first five baskets.

With the game tied at 11-all in the opening minutes, Charlie Barnes sandwiched a pair of three-pointers around a Ryan Reed fast-break layup to put BU up 8. After a basket from Trinity Christian's Nurell Lacey, Jemeil King rattled off five-straight points to stretch the BU lead to double figures, 24-13.

A power move inside by Vaj Rice capped off a 20-4 Bruin run giving Bellevue their largest lead of the opening half at 16 points, 31-15, with 9:22 to play.

The Trolls cut the deficit to single digits on an old-fashioned three-point play from Braxton Barnhizer with 5:49 to go but Matt Blaney responded by draining a corner trey off an offensive rebound at the other end. That started a 7-0 BU run which encompassed five-straight empty possessions by TCC as Bellevue matched their largest lead of the half at, 47-31.

TCC scored the final three points of the half but it was Bellevue that took a 47-34 lead into the locker rooms. Bellevue out-shot Trinity Christian 63%-to-44% in the half, went 6-of-11 from beyond the arc, and 3-of-6 from the free throw line. The Trolls were 3-of-6 from deep and 7-of-15 from the charity stripe.

Reed led all scorers with 11 at the break while Barnes chipped in eight for the Bruins. Erik Cohn paced the Trolls with nine while Barnhizer tossed in six in the opening 20 minutes.

Trinity Christian came out hot, scoring on seven of their first nine possessions in the second half to once again trim the Bellevue lead to single-digits at 57-49 with 14:48 to play.

Bellevue took off with an explosive 24-2 run over the ensuing 5:03 to grab a 30-point lead at 81-51 with just under 10 minutes to play in the game.

The Bruin lead stretched to as many as 37 points, 109-72, on a pair of free throws from Martis Johnson with 23 seconds on the clock.

The 35-point margin of victory marked Bellevue's largest road win since a 36-point throttling of Mayville State back on Jan. 7, 2017, a game the Bruins won 84-48.

Bellevue returns to North Star play on Friday, Feb. 6 when they host Mayville State University (8-3/5-2 NSAA) at 7:30 p.m. inside the Gordon Lozier Athletic Center.