Dominating Second Half Leads Wildcats to Landslide Victory at Grand View

DES MOINES, Iowa – Fueled by a 56-point explosion in the second half, the Baker men's basketball team defeated conference opponent Grand View, 94-67 on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa in a dominating performance by the Wildcats in their first road game of the Heart of America season.

Leading by one at halftime, the Wildcats lit up the scoreboard in the second half with eight of their 13 threes in the game coming in the latter half. Overall, Baker shot nearly 50 percent from the floor (34-for-69) and held the Vikings to their lowest point total of the season. BU also owned a big advantage in rebounding with a 45-24 margin that resulted in 15 second-chance points for the Wildcats.

Senior guard Dylan Smith tallied a season-high 19 points to lead the Wildcats in scoring, chipping in seven assists as well. Smith, a transfer from Bethany, posted 12 of his 19 points in the second half and hit three 3-pointers. Ty Henry and Noah Rigatuso joined Smith in double figures with Henry going for 14 points and seven rebounds and Rigatuso adding 13 points for his fifth game this year with 10 or more points.

With a back-and-forth start to the game, a three from Henry five minutes in created a little cushion for BU before the Vikings retook the lead with a triple of their own to make it 15-14 midway through the opening half. GVU went on to score 15 unanswered points to make it an 11-point lead for the hosts and trigger a BU timeout.

Out of the timeout, the Wildcats got a nice lift from their bench with Keynan Russell, Cason Richardson and Nick Whittick combining to score seven straight points for BU with Richardson nailing a three during the run.

With just over five minutes remaining in the half, Rigatuso sank a three to pull the Wildcats within one, but the Vikings used another short scoring burst to stretch their lead to 33-26.

Capitalizing on back-to-back threes by Smith and Ahmed Mahgoub, Baker closed out the first half scoring 10 of the final 12 points with Smith hitting a pull-up jumper with five seconds left to give the Wildcats a 38-37 lead at the break.

In what would end up being a combined 86-point half for the two clubs, the second half started off a little slow for both sides with a pair of free throws by Quentin Harvey making it a 46-40 lead for the Wildcats.

Right under the 15-minute mark, a stick-back by junior guard Korey Jones ignited things for the Wildcats with BU draining three straight 3-pointers to fuel an electric 18-0 run that saw them catapult out to a 66-42 lead with 11:09 remaining.

After Russell converted a three-point play, Braden Griffiths connected on back-to-back treys to make it a 22-point lead for the Wildcats. Griffiths' threes sparked another big BU run with an 18-4 stretch that finished off with the senior sharpshooter sinking his third three of the half to extend Baker's lead out to 89-57.

Richardson added the Wildcats' final three of the ballgame with just under three minutes remaining as Baker flirted with its first triple-digit outing of the year, but instead settled for its largest margin of victory this season at 94-67.

After defeating Benedictine, 76-56 at home on Wednesday in the conference opener, the Wildcats notch their second straight 20-point victory over a Heart opponent. With the back-to-back wins, they open up league play 2-0 for the second straight year after winning their first four conference games of the 2022-23 season.

Baker will look to extend its three-game winning streak with a matchup at home against Missouri Valley on Tuesday, Nov. 21 with tipoff from the Collins Center scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

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