Box Score St. Paul, Minn. – Paced by a hot shooting first half, the Minnesota Morris men's basketball team scored a 69-66 road win over Northwestern tonight (Jan. 13) in Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) action.

The Cougars hit 18-of-29 (67%) first half field goals, while holding the Eagles under 50% (14-of-30) as they built up a three point lead at the break. In the second half, the Cougars never trailed and opened their lead up to as much as 10 points.

For the second straight year, Morris (3-8, 1-1 UMAC) rebounds from an opening loss in conference action to knock off Northwestern (6-7, 1-1 UMAC), but this time get their first win in St. Paul since the 2005 UMAC Tournament Championship Game.

The Cougars were led in scoring by four players in double figures, paced by 13 each from Evan Reller and Derek Schmidt. Schmidt hits double figures for the ninth straight game, while Reller posts the best scoring game of his young career.

Kyle Bruns finished with 12 points and a game high nine rebounds, while Zach Meyer returned from a three-game absence to score 10, going 5-of-7 from the floor.

The Cougars were actually out-rebounded by the Eagles, 35-to-31, but pulled down 25 on the defensive end to limit the Eagles chances. Morris finished the game with 10 points on second chances, compared to eight from Northwestern. UMM also got 36 points from their bench in the game, while NWC got just 15 with only four coming in the second half.

With the win, the Cougars will look for the weekend sweep tomorrow when they take on Crown in St. Bonifacious at 5:00, looking to get above the .500 mark in league play. After just two UMAC games, the Cougars join the Storm as two of six teams all knotted up in the standings with identical 1-1 conference records.