SUU men's basketball: Baker nets 25 points in loss to Tennessee Tech

Tennessee Tech held Southern Utah to its second-lowest field goal percentage of the season while shooting the ball far better than any Thunderbird opponent has this year in claiming a 72-65 road win on Thursday night in the Centrum at Cedar City.

Tech held the Thunderbirds to .423 shooting (22-of-52), second only to the 39.1 percent (18-of-46) SUU shot at Hawai'i, and picked off 15 steals. Meanwhile, the Golden Eagles shot .481 from the field (26-of-54) to better Northern Colorado's .429 — the previous best night against the Thunderbirds this season — by 5.2 percentage points. Thursday's game was just the second this season that an opponent has out-shot SUU, with the Hawai'i game the other.

"I didn't really like our effort tonight," SUU coach Roger Reid said after the game. "We were at home but they were the aggressors tonight. Give them credit, they got after us defensively, they played very hard at the defensive end and we weren't able to match that intensity tonight."

Southern Utah led 4-0 early and held a 9-6 lead after a 3-pointer by Davis Baker with 13:02 to go in the first half, but Elijah Muhammad tied it at 9-9 with another 3-pointer and Riley Hunley staked the visitors to a 12-9 lead with a traditional three-point play at the 10:45 mark for Tech's first lead of the game.

The Golden Eagles went up by five, but SUU got back-to-back 3-pointers from Ryan Brimley to get within 16-15, and after the teams exchanged baskets, Scott Friel scored on an in-bounds play to give SUU a 19-18 lead with seven minutes to go.

That was the last lead SUU would have, however, as Tech sandwiched a pair of 3-pointers around two Jake Nielson free throws to grab a three-point lead, then put together a rally in the final two minutes, outscoring the Thunderbirds 9-3 to lead 36-28 at the break.

Tennessee Tech wasn't able to build a double-digit lead in the second half, but SUU was also never able to regain the advantage. Although the Thunderbirds did get within two points on several occasions, and had opportunities to tie or re-take the lead, they missed shots each time and TTU was able to get the rebounds.

Baker scored a season-high 25 points to lead all scorers, while Nielson had 12 and Brimley 11 before those two fouled out in the closing minutes. Baker and Matt Massey each had seven rebounds to lead the T-Birds, who won the battle of the boards, 35-34. Friel dished out a career-best seven assists and Nielson had six assists to go with three steals and a block.

Davis scored 19 points, while Muhammad chipped in 12 and Jones had 11 points and nine rebounds to lead Tech. Muhammad also had a team-high five assists.

Southern Utah (3-3) travels to Logan, Utah, to take on Utah State on Saturday, while Tennessee Tech (3-3) travels to Kansas for a Saturday matchup with the Jayhawks.

— Staff and wire services