News Release

Belton, Tx.; — The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor men’s basketball team almost let a double-digit second-half lead slip away, but the Crusaders held on with clutch free-throw shooting down the stretch to post a 72-66 victory over Southwestern University Tuesday night in Belton. The UMHB men improve to 7-3 on the year with their third straight men. Southwestern drops to 6-6 on the year with the loss.
UMHB led 35-28 at halftime and pushed the lead to 45-35 three minutes into the second half. The Pirates then exploded for a 21-8 run to take a 56-53 lead with 7:15 left to play. UMHB answered with a 9-0 run of its own to take a 62-56 lead with 4:17 to go. Southwestern would battle back to tie the game at 62 with 2:18 on the clock. UMHB got a free throw from Chris Poole and a Ryan Burgart lay-up to make it 65-62 before Matt Caplan hit a pair of free throws to pull the Pirates back within one at 65-64 with 37 ticks left. UMHB then hit eight of nine from the free-throw line in the final seconds and Southwestern missed two shots and turned the ball over once in the final seconds.
Neiman Ford led UMHB with 15 points and he also grabbed seven rebounds. Kevin Guyden added 13 points for the Cru and Connor Kuykendall came off the bench to add 11 points. Nine different Crusaders scored and seven players had six or more points. Caplan led Southwestern with 20 points and Mike Powell added 15 for the Pirates. Caplan and Powell combined for 26 of Southwestern’s 28 first-half points. UMHB shot 41 per cent from the field and 38 per cent from three-point range while the Pirates hit 43 per cent from the field and 50 per cent from beyond the arc.
The Crusaders have now wrapped up the non-conference portion of their schedule. UMHB will return to American Southwest Conference play with a 3:00 PM home game against the University of the Ozarks on Saturday at the Mayborn Campus Center.