Dwayne Morgan sat in the second row of the America First Event Center, the former 5-star recruit and UNLV Rebel waiting for his chance to join his future team. On Saturday, he saw that he was about to join a pretty good one.
The T-Birds picked up their biggest victory of the year, topping Central Michigan 86-80 Saturday afternoon in Cedar City. It was just Central Michigan's second loss of the season.
“It’s exciting,” head coach Todd Simon said. “That’s a very good team, well coached and well respected and will contend for their league.”
With the win, the T-Birds have already matched their win total from last season and stayed undefeated at home (5-0) on the season. The win also guarantees SUU will have a winning record entering Big Sky play.
"We did what we said we were going to do: play together, get stops,” James McGee said. “We did that and the outcome was great.”
The T-Birds were led by Brandon Better who finished with 17 points. Ivan Madunic added a career-high 16 points and McGee scored 16 on 3 of 5 shooting from deep.
It was Better who provided a key spark in the first half.
Better entered the game with the T-Birds trailing 9-5. That deficit was quickly erased. Better hit two 3-pointers, scoring eight quick points, and made a nice pass for a Christian Musoko dunk to spark a 12-0 run for the T-Birds.
And once the spark was there, Ivan Madunic caught fire.
The Croatian big man hit four 3-pointers (matching his season total entering the Saturday’s game) in the first half to push the T-Birds out to a 14-point lead. It wasn’t just the offense that was working during the run, the SUU defense was swarming the Chippewas, deflecting multiple passes, blocking shots and forcing contested jumpers. It was a defensive performance that head coach Todd Simon called the “best of the year.”
CMU shot 41 percent from the field and 27 percent from 3. But the Chippewas weren’t kept in check all game.
After Madunic’s fourth 3-pointer, the T-Birds led 33-19 with 5:35 left in the half, but CMU scored the next 11 points and was able to cut SUU’s lead to 42-40 at the half.
The roller coaster-type game continued in the second. The T-Birds began the half on 19-7 run to push the lead back to double digits before another 9-0 run from CMU. The Chippewas didn’t ever go away, even cutting it to three points with less than a minute remaining.
“They are explosive, they are very hard to guard and make a lot of 3s, and we are the same way,” Simon said. “So you are going to see a lot of runs.”
But SUU was able to withstand the last one and walked away victorious.
“These guys believe,” Simon said.
And everyone else is starting to as well.
“Everyone expected us to be terrible, but we have guys now that are players,” McGee said.
And the T-Birds are about to add another.
“He’s a super competitor strong guy, gritty guy, and a vet,” McGee said of Morgan, who was on his visit to the campus. “It’s exciting. The sky is the limit for us.”