Bears Ice Down Red Hot Talladega To Wrap Up Home Stand

Friday, December 29

Macon, Ga.

2 p.m.

Mercer University

Talladega

Bears Ice Down Red Hot Talladega To Wrap Up Home Stand

12/29/2023 4:52:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score

By: Makenzie Jones, jones_m@mercer.edu

MACON – Mercer scored 19 points off of 18 turnovers and shot better than 50 percent from the field for the second time in the last three games as the Bears wrapped up a six-game December home stand with a convincing 74-50 victory over visiting Talladega on Friday afternoon in Hawkins Arena.

The result put the finishing touches on a 5-1 home stand for the Bears (7-6) who have outscored opponents by an average of 15 points per game over their current five-game win streak. The loss marked the unofficial end of a nine-game win streak for the Tornadoes (11-1) who designated Friday's contest in Macon as an exhibition matchup, per NAIA guidelines.

THE BASICS

SCORE: Mercer 74, Talladega 50
RECORDS: Mercer (7-6, 0-0 SoCon); *Thomas (11-1, 0-0 GCAC)
LOCATION: Macon, Ga. (Hawkins Arena)

HOW IT HAPPENED

1ST HALF

The Orange & Black canned nearly 53 percent of its field goal attempts in the opening half, and used an 11-0 scoring spurt late in the stanza to inevitably lug a 39-25 lead into the intermission. Talladega hung around for the first six minutes of the afternoon, pulling to within three points, 12-9, on Jevon Tatum's pullup jumper at the 14:04 mark, but Jalyn McCreary hit both ends of a two-shot foul 40 seconds later to spurn the momentum-changing run. The hosts padded their advantage out to double digits, 26-15, on McCreary's fast break dunk with 8-1/2 minutes left before the break, and Amanze Ngumezi capped off the 11-0 run two minutes later with a pair of freebies.

2ND HALF

The Bears pushed their lead out to 20 points, 49-29, just more than six minutes into the second half, and led by as many as 28 points, 64-36, following a pair of free throws from Jalyn McCreary with 6:48 left to play. Mercer canned half of its 26 field goal attempts in the latter stanza, while also drawing 25 of its 35 points in the period from its bench.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE

+ Senior Jalyn McCreary scored a game-high 24 points on 8-of-11 field goal shooting, including an 8-for-10 clip from the charity stripe. He also tallied a trio of rebounds and two blocks.
+ Senior Robby Carmody chipped in 10 points, three steals and a pair of boards in 26 minutes of action. He was 2-for-3 from the field in the second half.
+ Senior Amanze Ngumezi tallied eight points, five rebounds, four blocks, two steals and a pair of assists in 17 minutes on the floor. He keyed his offensive output with a 3-for-4 tally from the free throw line.

NOTABLES

+ Mercer has now captured five-straight games for the first time since stringing together five-straight victories from Nov. 27-Dec. 11, 2021.
+ The Bears have out-rebounded each of their last six opponents, including a 31-24 disparity on the boards in Friday's home matchup with Talladega. MU is +0.7 in the rebounding column through the first 13 games of the current campaign.
+ The Orange & Black also matched a season-high (South Alabama) with seven blocked shots against the Tornadoes on Friday.

UP NEXT

The Bears will lift the lid on the Southern Conference portion of its 2023-24 slate on Wednesday when they trek to Johnson City, Tenn., to battle East Tennessee State (7-5, 0-0 SoCon). That game will also mark the first of three-straight road games for MU.

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BACK THE BEARS

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