KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The road to repeat as a national champion for No. 3 College of Idaho took a significant step with an 87-65 Round of 16 win over Madonna on Friday afternoon.
College of Idaho (31-3) has won its last five Round of 16 games as six Yotes scored in double figures in the win. Junior
Drew Wyman paced the Yotes from the onset as he scored a team-high 17 points as all five starters scored in double figures. He was joined in double figures by
Samaje Morgan (15 pts.),
Tyler Robinett (14 pts.),
Johnny Radford (13 pts.),
Caden Handran (11 pts.) and
Jake O'Neil (10 pts.). It was the first time in the season that College of Idaho had six in double figures and first time since Nov. 23, 2018 against Northwest Indian College.
Madonna (27-7) was able to land three players in double figures with Isaac Anderson scoring 17 to lead the Crusaders before fouling out. He was joined in double figures by a pair of 13-point efforts from Brendan Young and Matthew MacLellan.
Wyman scored the first seven points of the game for College of Idaho to put the defending national champions ahead early 7-2. Later in the half, Madonna managed to tie the game at 23 with 9:32 left in the opening stanza. C of I came back with seven unanswered but the game was far from over as the half was tied on two more occasions before the break. The Yotes went into the intermission with a 40-38 lead as Robinett scored 11 of his 14.
The recipe for success has been a halftime lead for College of Idaho, who entered the game having won 61 of its last 63 when leading at half.
Robinett picked up where he left off with a 3-pointer on the first possession of the second 20 minutes for the Yotes. Madonna rallied to cut the deficit to as little as three on four occasions. After the Crusaders' Ryan Nunn hit a 3-pointer made it a 65-57 game with 11:11 left, the Yotes managed to score 14 of the next 19 points to push the advantage to double digits for the rest of the contest. In that spurt, the Yotes got six points each from Morgan and Handran en route to the victory as they held the Crusaders off the scoreboard in the final 2:06.
The next opponent for College of Idaho will be Morningside, who defeated Cumberlands, 80-74 in the other round of 16 matchup at 7 p.m. (CST)/6 p.m.
Tyler Harris was honored as a NAIA Champions of Character recipient for his work with the Legacy Program.
