PORTLAND | Able to come away with another conference win tonight was the Warner Pacific University Men's Basketball team (6-3, 2-1), who rebounded from a Friday night loss to beat the Bushnell University Beacons by a final score of 95-82, which is the most points scored by Warner Pacific in a game this season.
 
Knights' Men's Basketball Head Coach Jamayne Potts was incredibly impressed with his team's response to adversity, and shared his thoughts on tonight's win by stating, "I'm really proud of the way our team responded tonight after having a tough loss yesterday."
 
"We played for each other on the court tonight. We played for our two players unable to suit up with us tonight, as well as the two players out due to injury," Coach Potts went on to say.
 
Coach Potts evaluated his players' statistical night by sharing, "The win and the stats tell it all. We shared the basketball well, having 18 assists as a team, and we had seven guys in double figures."
 
"This also happened from taking care of the ball, something we didn't do well last night. It was a great team win to finish off the night after the WPU women's big win," Coach Potts concluded.
 
After a back-and-forth scoring battle just a quarter of the way through tonight's contest, the Beacons would hold their final lead of the game with 9 minutes remaining in the first half before the Knights would completely take over. With Bushnell securing a 22-20 lead, WPU would go on to knockdown three straight 3-point baskets, forcing the Beacons to call their first timeout of the game with the Knights leading 29-22.
 
Warner Pacific would go on to outscore the Beacons by an additional 9 points from that point on in the first half, holding a 16-point lead heading into the halftime break. The Knights shot at a blistering 61% field goal percentage in the first half, and even topped that by hitting 9 of their 14 shots from beyond the 3-point arc, good enough for a 64% 3-point field goal percentage.
 
Though the Knights would cool down from three-point range in the second half, Bushnell was unable to find any steady scoring pace to cut into the Knights' lead, and watched their deficit fluctuate for the remaining 20 minutes of gameplay. The Beacons would actually see a higher percentage of field goals made in the second half, but that was eventually proven to be a moot point against the Knights' high scoring offensive scheme tonight.
 
All five of WPU's starters would see double-figures in scoring, led by senior guard and team captain Isaac Etter who dropped 19 points on the Beacons. Scoring 14 points and adding 7 assists to the mix was sophomore guard Tyrese Yussuf-Willis, adding 4 rebounds along the way. Junior guard Thomas Miles (14) and freshman guard Nigel McKay (10) both came off the bench to score in double digits as well, and providing Coach Potts with some tremendously crucial minutes due to the short WPU bench today.
 
Leading his team and all scorers tonight was Bushnell's guard Stevie Schlabach, who found payday for 24 points in just over 36 minutes played. Beacons' guards Logan Sand and Luke Smith both scored 10 points and brought down 3 rebounds apiece in tonight's efforts against the Knights.
 
When asked about looking ahead to the rest of the season as they approach a brief conference play break, Coach Potts said, "Now we just have to continue to progress, not get too high or too low, and keep building upon it."
 
"The great news is that we are definitely ahead of where we were last season during this time of the year, and slowly but surely figuring things out," was the last Coach Potts had to share on tonight's victory and season expectation moving forward.
 
Coach Potts and his squad will look to grow their overall record next Friday, December 10^th, as they will take a backseat in the conference play to host NCAA DIII Willamette University from Salem, Ore. in C.C. Perry Gym, with a tentative 7pm PST tipoff awaiting the Bearcats and Knights.