Southeastern connected on the second-most three-point buckets ever in a Great American Conference game on its way to a 112-87 win over Southwestern Oklahoma State in its home opener on Saturday afternoon in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
The win lifts the Savage Storm to 3-3 on the year overall and 1-1 in GAC play heading into a non-conference matchup versus Arlington Baptist set for 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 6 back in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
"On the offensive end," said head coach Kelly Green. "When the biscuit goes in the basket, yeah. I think what you saw here is we feel like we can play faster, and defensively it leads to us playing faster on the offensive end. We've got to not gamble as much. We've got to learn to get in front of people. We did a poor job of getting in front of them. But overall, we shot the three-point shot so well tonight, that it covered up a lot of our sins."
Only one game in the history of the GAC saw more three pointers drop than Southeastern hit on Saturday afternoon, with the Storm connecting 22-of-35 from beyond the arc to finish 62.9 percent from three-point range overall for the game.
Jett Sternberger led the charge from long range, hitting 7-of-9 on his way to a 31-point outing to lead all scorers.
Kody Clouet was next in line with a season-high 21 points thanks to a 6-of-8 effort form beyond the arc, while Landon Condiff was next in line with 17 off the bench with a trio of threes.
Aaron Jacob came off the bench in just his second appearance of the season and logged a double-double with 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting with three threes, while also pulling down a game-high 12 rebounds.
SE shot 52.1 percent overall from the field in the contest, including a 63.9 percent effort in the second half which included a lights out 76.5 percent shooting effort from three-point range.
SE held a 48-to-36 advantage on the boards, with Sternberger and Kyle Leslie each grabbing seven rebounds with RJ Weeks adding six.
The Storm also distributed the ball well, finishing with 28 assists as a team, led by Brennen Burns who handed out seven while Weeks was right behind with six.
SWOSU scored first, but SE would answer with eight-straight points, and by the 12:17 mark of the first half a Robert Briley three would give the Storm its first double-digit lead at 22-10.
That edge would hit as high as 18 points twice late in the first half, the second time on a pair of Sternberger free throws, but the Bulldogs would score seven of the final nine points to trim Southeastern's halftime lead to 46-33.
SWOSU would eventually get the gap to single digits early in the second half at 52-43 by the 17:37 mark, but The Storm would answer with an 18-6 run that saw the lead balloon back to 21 points at 70-49 by the 13:27 mark.
The Bulldogs would cut into he lead one final time, closing the gap to 15 points with 10:47 to play, but Southeastern would push the lead back beyond 20 points, taking a largest lead of 30 points with 4:26 to play before ultimately outscoring SWOSU 39-29 over the final 10 minutes to pull out the 112-87 win.
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