CHICAGO – Winless Illinois Tech kept pace with the Roosevelt men's basketball team for the first 25 minutes of Sunday's contest at the Goodman Center, but a plethora of three-point buckets combined with careful passing in the second half propelled the Green and White to a 65-42 win over the visiting Scarlet Hawks.
Joe Harks scored a team-high 20 points, while Kevin Priebe added 12 and Pete Mroz added 11 for the Lakers (6-3), who connected on seven of 13 trey tries in the second half after shooting just 2-for-11 from downtown in the opening period.
Tyree York accounted for 12 of Roosevelt's 24 assists. All but one of the Lakers' 25 baskets on the afternoon were assisted.
Illinois Tech (0-7) weathered an early Roosevelt lead and trailed by no more than six points in the first half.
Big man Samuel Rarick carried the Scarlet Hawks with a game-high 27 points. Rarick scored 14 on a variety of interior moves and jumpers in the first half to help IIT enter the halftime break trailing by only three.
Also setting the Lakers back in the early going were giveaways, as Roosevelt committed 11 first-half turnovers.
But the three and deft passing while taking care of the ball proved to be the mix that created distance between the two sides in the second half.
Roosevelt made seven of 13 from behind the arc in the final stanza, keying a 57.1 percent team clip from the floor in the span, and the Lakers turned the ball over just once. The Green and White went the final 17:29 of regulation without a giveaway, and all 16 of the Lakers' second-half buckets were aided with assists.
Harks and Mroz combined for five of Roosevelt's seven second-half treys, and Roosevelt never looked back as it built a lead as large as 24 in the final stages.
"IIT gave us a very good zone look that had us settling a little bit in the first half, and they also turned us over 11 times," said Roosevelt head coach Joe Griffin. "I like how we responded in the second half with only one second-half turnover. Rarick was darn good and everyone that we put on him couldn't guard him. He's going to be a good player for them going forward. Further, I know [IIT head coach] Todd [Kelly] is going to get that program back on track because he's a great recruiter and has a very good track record.
"As for us, our 24 assists were great to see and it was beneficial for us that we had 10 players in the scoring column," Griffin said. "Our defense has to improve, however, if we hope to beat Stritch a week from today."
Roosevelt has a week off for final exams before traveling to Milwaukee to face 13th-ranked Cardinal Stritch in a CCAC affair next Saturday, Dec. 13 at 3 p.m.
