No. 6 Baker Rights Ship with 30-Point Blowout over Central Methodist

BALDWIN CITY - After suffering back-to-back losses for the first time in almost a year, No. 6 Baker men's basketball got back in the win column in a big way with a dominating, 94-62 victory over Central Methodist on Wednesday night here in the Collins Center.

The Wildcats exploded for a 54-point first half and maintained their cruise control in the second half to earn their 20th win of the season. BU racked up 14 threes with 10 of them coming in a first-half bombardment.

Noah Rigatuso went over 20 points for the third straight game, leading the team with 22 points and eight rebounds. Ahmed Mahgoub had an efficient night with his only two misses (5-for-7) coming from three-point range to finish with 14 points. Quentin Harvey, Ty Henry, Korey Jones, Kaimen Lennox and Cason Richardson all recorded eight points apiece.

Henry opened up the game with a triple on BU's first possession of the game and Mahgoub followed with one quickly after to set the tone early on. Meanwhile, defensively, the Wildcats held CMU without a bucket through the first five minutes of action with Baker taking an initial 10-2 lead.

The Wildcats continued to revert back to familiar territory with Richardson burying back-to-back threes and then, Nick Whittick finding Rigatuso for an alley-oop dunk to give BU a 36-15 lead with 5:27 left in the first half.

Baker closed out the half by sinking four straight 3-pointers to take a commanding 54-22 halftime lead. Henry sprung the run with his second triple of the half, Rigatuso followed with a set and Jones garnished the half with BU's 10th three of the first 20 minutes.

The first two plays out of the intermission featured Wildcats dunks with Whittick sneaking a pass thru to Rigatuso for another jam and Mahgoub following with a dunk on a runout steal.

CMU actually controlled things through the early parts of the second half though, going on an 18-6 run to start the half. A three from Whittick and back-to-back layups from Harvey and Lennox pushed BU's lead back out to 71-45.

Lennox sank another three for the 'Cats as their lead jumped back out to 30 points down the home stretch.

Javin Shaw and Max Black tallied the final two threes for BU as they finished off the season sweep over CMU with a 94-62 victory.

Baker will be in action again this weekend with a matchup at home against Mount Mercy on Saturday, February 8 at 2 p.m. in the Collins Center.

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