Cold start leads to Pride's 79-68 loss to Grand View
DUBUQUE, Iowa - Coming off of a week that saw them play four total overtimes over two games, the Clarke University men's basketball struggled to find early footing in an 11-point loss to Grand View University by a 79-68 final on Wednesday night.
The Vikings would jump out to a 5-0 and 7-1 lead early before using an 8-0 run made it 19-6 before GVU would grow their largest lead of the first half to 18 as they would enter the halftime break with a 15-point lead at 47-32.
Attempting only one less shot than the Pride, Grand View would go 20-for-32 (62.5%) from the field and 5-of-12 (41.7%) from deep compared to 11-of-33 (33.3%) from the field and 4-for-15 (26.7%) from three for CU.
Quality minutes from Carson Lindauer and Stefan Vasic off the bench jump-started the offense a bit as they combined for 20 of the team's 32 points in the half with Lindauer going 4-for-7 from the field for 12 points and Vasic adding eight on 3-of-6 shooting.
The second half was more of the same early before a strong finish from CU as the Vikings extended their lead to its largest of the game at 24 points but Clarke would cut it to 11 points with 4:21 remaining but that would be as close as they would get with the game also finishing at that margin at the 79-68 final.
Vasic and Lindauer would finish with 18 and 17 respectively as Biggie Luster led the team in scoring with 24 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the field while adding eight rebounds, three assists, three steals, and a blocked shot but three of CU's five starters and four players total who stepped foot on the floor were held scoreless in the game.
Grand View had four players in double figures led by Markell Hood's 21 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the field as Jaxson Young added 12, Jacob Koontz finished with 10, and Noah Hart also added 10.
Clarke will host their final home game of 2023-24 when they welcome Missouri Valley College to the Kehl Center on Saturday, Feb. 17 as they will host Senior Day festivities prior to the 2:00 p.m. CT scheduled tip following the conclusion of the women's game prior.