Harding reached its highest point total of the year in taking down the Central Baptist College Mustangs tonight, 109-80. The win marked the sixth in a row for HU, which has started the year 6-0 at home, 7-1 overall. Lonnie Smith led the way for the Bisons with a career-high 37 points. He amazingly shot 14-of-16 from the field, including six of seven from three-point range. Alassane Savadogo pulled down 18 rebounds in the blowout win, adding 13 points for the Bisons’ only double-double. Brandon Sims, Cole Kee, and Jesse Bynum all scored in double figures for the Bisons.
Here are the four key stats:
| HU | Opp. | +/- | |
| TS% | 61.4 | 50.8 | 0.209 |
| OR% | 42.5% | 18.8% | 1.267 |
| TR | 11.0 | 16.2 | 0.471 |
| FTM/P | 0.175 | 0.091 | 0.919 |
We won pretty much every battle in tonight’s game, starting by outshooting the Mustangs by 20%. From there, we forced turnovers at a 47% better clip, made free throws 92% more often, and outrebounded them by more than 100%. Clearly, Savadogo was a force that CBC could not handle inside, and they weren’t quick enough to keep up with Lonnie Smith, who did most of the shooting damage. The team as a whole deserves credit for the performance at the stripe and handling the ball, although Steven Barnett did have five turnovers on his own.
As for game scores, it should come as no surprise that Lonnie’s 36.3 was the highest for this game (and the season so far). Sims and Savadogo reached double digits, and Reggie Bibb, Cole Kee, and Jesse Bynum were close.
Here are the player stats:
| ## | Player Name | GS | GS/M | TS% | PPR | AR | TR | RR |
| 21 | Brandon Sims | 11.5 | 0.460 | 59.1 | 2.7 | 23.5 | 11.8 | 3.6% |
| 24 | Patrick Andrepont | 3.8 | 0.158 | 41.5 | -6.9 | 14.9 | 22.3 | 11.4% |
| 50 | Alassane Savadogo | 13.7 | 0.548 | 41.6 | 1.3 | 10.7 | 5.4 | 32.7% |
| 12 | Reggie Bibb | 7.9 | 0.494 | 55.1 | 25.0 | 52.4 | 0.0 | 11.4% |
| 14 | Lonnie Smith | 36.3 | 1.171 | 106.8 | 4.3 | 10.4 | 0.0 | 7.3% |
| 4 | Cole Kee | 8.6 | 0.391 | 50.6 | 4.5 | 20.2 | 6.7 | 6.2% |
| 10 | Kellen Morgan | 4.2 | 0.700 | 62.5 | 11.1 | 20.0 | 0.0 | 22.7% |
| 22 | Steven Barnett | -4.6 | -0.192 | 0.0 | -9.7 | 32.2 | 40.2 | 5.7% |
| 34 | Jesse Bynum | 7.7 | 0.335 | 62.8 | -4.3 | 0.0 | 10.2 | 11.9% |
| 44 | Alex Anderson | 4.3 | 1.075 | 77.3 | -25.0 | 0.0 | 20.5 | 22.7% |
The Bisons play one more game before taking three weeks off for the holidays, and that game is at Division-I Northwestern State this coming Saturday at 2 p.m. The media coverage is a bit better for D-I schools, as you might expect, so NSU already has a game preview up on their site, if you’re interested in looking at that. They seem to have the right mindset coming into the game, if you ask me.
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