EMPORIA – After taking a 25-point win over Emporia State 12 days earlier, No. 1-ranked Washburn University men's basketball had to fight off Emporia State from start to finish Thursday, but never trailed en route to gutting out a 75-64 road victory over the Hornets at White Auditorium.
Sophomore Dillon Claussen scored a game-high 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds in Thursday's 75-64 MIAA road win over Emporia State. [Photo by Rick Peterson/TSN]
"Gut it out is a great way to put it,'' Washburn coach Brett Ballard said. "I think that's kind of what we did. It was sort of an ugly game, really physical, and they did a great job of limiting our opportunities in the paint, so we kind of had to grind through that offensively.
"Defensively we were really, really good again. We held them to 64 and a low shooting percentage and rebounded the ball at a pretty high clip. So, on a night when our offense wasn't exactly humming, defense got it done.''
Washburn, which improved to 17-0 overall and 7-0 in the MIAA, opened the game with five straight points and led by as many as eight points (31-23) with 3:47 left in the first half, but Emporia State (5-11, 1-6) hung around, getting as close as two points and trailing 35-29 at the break.
Washburn built its lead to nine points three times in the first 16 minutes of the second half, but the the Hornets were still within four points (68-64) with 1:31 remaining before the Ichabods ended the game with a 7-0 run to build its biggest lead of the night.
Senior Bryson Smith scored 12 points and hit four straight free throws in the final seconds as Washburn improved to 17-0 Thursday night at Emporia State. [Photo by Rick Peterson/TSN]
Senior Bryson Smith hit four straight free throws over the final 32.8 seconds to close out the win.
"I feel like in those moments I excel in those moments,'' Smith said. "I look for those moments because being a leader on the team I just want to pull through and make those big plays at the end for my team and come out victorius.''
Washburn finished the night shooting 49.1 percent from the field (26 of 53) and was 70 percent from the field on two-point attempts (19 of 27).
The Ichabods hit seven of 26 3-pointers and went 16 of 25 at the free throw line.
Washburn scored 36 points in the paint and added 12 fastbreak points.
Emporia State shot 38 percent overall and 29 percent from beyond the arc.
Individually, sophomore Dillon Claussen led Washburn with 17 points on 7 of 11 shooting and pulled down seven rebounds.
Claussen scored 15 points in the second half while going 6 of 7 from the field.
"It was definitely a lot tougher game than last time,'' Claussen said. "They were very physical with me in the first half and their physicality caused some turnovers and bad plays, but we came back the second half and played through it.
"We had to get in the paint and be strong on our finishes. They hit some tough shots, which is going to happen sometimes. We just have to stay with it for 40 minutes.''
Smith added 12 points, four assists and four rebounds and went 5 of 7 at the free throw line.
Sophomore Tyson Ruud came off the bench to register nine points, nine rebounds and two assists, while senior Sam Ungashick had nine points and seven boards.
Sophomore Marcus Glock and junior Jeremiah Jones both added eight points, with Glock knocking down a pair of 3-pointers.
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