Cavs Thrash Thunderbirds in Season Debut
VANCOUVER, B.C.—Concordia opened up a 28-16 lead after the first period and never looked back en route to a 93-73 win at the University of British Columbia in the team's season opener on Thursday.
The Cavaliers will play two more contests against Canadian schools over the next two days at the War Memorial Gymnasium. Concordia will take the court against the University of Victoria on Friday before finishing off their trip against Thompson Rivers on Saturday.
The Cavs led by as many as 32 points in the second quarter thanks to three-point shooting from
Willy Ligon (Corona, Calif./Centennial H.S.). Ligon had 20 first-half points on 6-for-11 shooting behind the arc, and the Cavs were 10-for-22 from three in the first half as a team.
Ligon finished tied for the game-high with 21 points in Concordia's first contest of the season. Connecting on 8-of-12 attempts,
Adam Herman (Vancouver, Wash./Prairie H.S.) also had 21 points for the Cavs, and added a team-high seven rebounds.
"It was a great start for us. It was exciting to see that we were able to establish such a high level of intensity so early in the year," CU head coach
Brad Barbarick said. "We played extremely well together and played hard throughout the game while getting outstanding contributions from our two leading scorers."
Concordia shot 52.5 percent from the floor (34 of 73) while holding the Thunderbirds to a 43.3 (24 of 51) shooting percentage. UBC finished with a slight edge on the boards, 39 to 34, but were forced into 35 turnovers on the night which directly resulted in 30 points for the Cavs.
David Wagner led UBC with 18 points and was followed closely by 15 from teammate Tommy Nixon.
Concordia scored the opening bucket on a Herman layup before UBC took a brief 6-4 lead with the aid of a pair of Nixon layups. Concordia junior
Thomas Pierce (Gary, Ind./Roosevelt H.S.) followed by draining a three-pointer as part of a 16-4 spree to regain the lead which CU would not surrender the rest of the contest.