Men's Hoops Runs Streak To 3 With 70-54 Win At Washington State

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PULLMAN, Wash. – In the early portion of each season, teams often fight to figure out their best lineups, work on improving deficiencies and find their true identities. For the University of New Orleans basketball team, their comfort zone of late has been playing with a lead as the Privateers posted their third-consecutive coast-to-coast victory with a 70-54 win over Washington State on Saturday evening in Beasely Coliseum.
 
UNO scored seven of the game's first nine points and never trailed in the contest to claim its third consecutive win and improve to 4-3 on the young campaign. The Privateers have not trailed at any point during the current winning streak – a span of 120 minutes – and posted their first win over a Pac 12 team since defeating Arizona State, 54-47 on Dec. 1, 1998. In defeat, Washington State fell to 4-4 on the year.
 
"This is a good win," head coach Mark Slessinger said. "I have a ton of respect of [Washington State head coach] Ernie Kent. I've known him for years and followed him when he was at Oregon. I have friends who are on his staff. But let me tell you, I have a great staff. Those guys really work hard. They did such a good job of getting these guys ready for this game. It was great. They're good, good guys and I'm so blessed to work with them.
 
"Our kids played so unselfishly. What a fun game to play today. We didn't play perfectly. We have a lot of stuff that we'll keep working on. We'll go back and look at it to find the stuff we need to fix, but they won it. They played hard and they played together."
 
Senior guard Christavious Gill led four Privateers in double figures offensively with a game-high 18 points, and senior forward Erik Thomas tallied his second double-double of the season with 17 points and a game-best 10 rebounds. Junior forward Travin Thibodeaux was next for UNO with 16 points while senior guard Tevin Broyles added 10. Broyles handed out a game-high six assists and junior forward Makur Puou led the team with a pair of blocked shots.
 
New Orleans hit at least 50 percent of its shots in both halves, going 13-of-26 from the field in the opening stanza (.500) before draining 16-of-28 (.571) over the final 20 minutes, to finish the game at a .537 clip. It was more of the same from beyond the 3-point arc as UNO was 6-of-14 (.429), including four treys by Gill.
 
Despite being at a sizeable height disadvantage, UNO out-rebounded Washington State 36-20, turned 10 offensive boards into 12 second-chance points, and outscored the Cougars in the paint 38-30.
 
"We really scored well late in the clock," Slessinger said. "Our guys did a great job of late-clock scoring and out of timeouts. We took shots that were within us. [Washington State] is a tricky defensive team. They'll give you some good shots and if you take the good shots, you're going to lose. You have to wait to get the great shots against them. We were able to do that and I was proud of them."
 
The Privateers got off to a good start, scoring the game's opening points on a bucket by Thibodeaux and jumping out to a 7-2 lead. The Cougars rallied to tie the game at 11-all and again at 13-13 before New Orleans went on a 13-0 run to go ahead for good. Washington State responded with a 9-0 run to cut the deficit to four at 26-22 with 3:24 to play in the opening half and that would be the UNO margin of advantage at the break as the Privateers went into the locker room on top, 30-26.
 
The two teams traded buckets early in the final frame but following a 3-pointer by Washington State's Robert Franks to make it a five-point affair at 37-32, the Privateers scored five straight to stretch the lead back to double digits. The Cougars got to within six two more times in the middle portion of the frame – the last coming at 46-40 with 12:29 to go – only to see the Privateers use a 9-2 run over the next 4:24 to hold a 13-point edge at 56-43.
 
The UNO lead swelled to as many as 18 on a Gill layup to make it 70-52 with just under a minute to play and the Cougars' Josh Hawkinson converted a layup with 17 seconds remaining to account for the final score.
 
"We didn't want them to get into a rhythm offensively," Slessinger added. "If they can get two or three things going at one time, they're going to be in a good rhythm and they're going to have a lot of fun in what they're trying to do. They can get on a roll and they can get going in transition. We tried to mix up our defense to try and camouflage some of our deficiencies a little bit to keep them from getting into a rhythm."
 
Franks came off the bench to lead Washington Stat with 16 points, followed by Hawkinson and Ike Irouegbu with 13 and 11, respectively. Hawkinson paced the Cougars with six rebounds and a block while sharing team-high honors in steals with K.J. Langston at two apiece. Malachi Flynn led the home team with four assists.
 
The Privateers return to action on Sunday, Dec. 11, when they travel to Evanston, Ill., to take on Northwestern. From there, UNO returns to the Crescent City where it will play host to Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday, Dec. 17, at 6 p.m. in Lakefront Arena. Both of those games will be broadcast live as the game at Northwestern will be aired on the Big 10 Network while Cox Sports Television will handle duties for the contest against the Ragin Cajuns.
 
For tickets to that game, and future Privateer Athletics events, contact the UNO Athletics Ticket Office over the phone at (504) 280-GAME (4263) or via the Internet by clicking HERE.