MEMPHIS-No. 15/14 West Florida used a 14-2 run early in the second half to take a 10-point lead they would never relinquish as they remained in first place with a 76-66 win over the No. 18/NR Christian Brothers University Bucs Monday evening at Canale Arena.

HOW IT HAPPENED:
• The first half was back-and-forth, with four ties, 13 lead changes, no lead of more than four points and no run of more than six points.
• A Joe Laravie (Kettering, Ohio/Alter HS) layup with two seconds remaining in the half provided the fourth tie, sending the teams to the locker room knotted at 34-all.
• The Bucs (13-4, 5-4 GSC) scored five straight on an Adam Dieball (Cincinnati, Ohio/Lakota East HS) triple and an Alex Trentman (Alexandria, Ky./Bishop Brossart HS) layup to take a 43-41 lead with 16:22 remaining.
• UWF (16-1, 8-1) answered with the decisive 14-2 run capped by a Moter Deng jumper that gave them a 55-45 lead with 11:18 remaining. Deng scored 10 of his team-high 26 points during the run.
• CBU used an 11-3 burst to pull within 58-56 on a Laravie triple with 7:40 remaining, but the Argos again answered with an 8-0 burst to restore their lead to 66-56 on two Rashaan Benson free throws with 3:57 remaining.
• The Bucs had one more answer, using a 9-2 run to close within 68-65 on a Brad Miller (Cincinnati, Ohio/Elder HS) triple with 1:39 remaining in the half, but Deng answered with a layup and the Argos were 4-of-4 at the free throw line in the final 1:04 to salt away the victory.

KEY STATS:
• Laravie scored a game-high 27 points and set a career-high with five steals. He shot 10-of-21 overall, including 5-of-14 from three-point range.
• Dieball scored 18 with five rebounds, two blocks and a game-high nine assists.
• Mller scored eight points with five rebounds off the bench.
• Jeff Larkin (Cincinnati, Ohio/La Salle HS) added seven points with five assists and two steals.
• The Bucs shot 37.3 percent (25-of-67) from the field, including 30.6 percent (11-of-36) from three-point range. UWF finished 57.7 percent (30-of-52) overall, including 36.4 percent (4-of-11) from beyond the arc.
• UWF out-rebounded the Bucs 41-25. Each team grabbed nine offensive boards, and CBU forced 13 Argo turnovers while committing six.

HEAD COACH MIKE NIENABER'S THOUGHTS:
"I thought we did a decent job battling back after we got down 10 to get it to a one possession game. It wasn't just their offensive rebounds though, they've for the kind of team that can just go one on one and made some tough plays. Deng was unbelievable. What we were trying to do with our offensive team was to get our best zone offense in against them. When we do that though we were small and had some tough matchups. I thought Deng hit some really tough shots. There were clearly sometimes where we broke down, but he kind of took the game over on the offensive end when they needed a big basket. I told the guys we played teams these last two games that are right there with us and you have to say better than us now. We're no where near where we can be though. We've got a lot of young guys out there paying. We need to get Luke Rudy going again, he's been out for almost a month. He was 0-3 tonight, but if you get him going again and he makes one or two of those it changes the complexion of the game. Jeff had a rough night shooting, and its going to be hard for us to beat a good team when he goes 1-7 from three and 3-13 overall. I'm not saying that to get down on Jeff, he's been a winner for us for three and a half years and we're going to stick with him. When it happens though to the best of them it makes it tough. Joe got hot but 5-14 from three isn't lights out. You've got to give them some credit. Adam finally got some of the threes falling and make some big plays. In critical situations though when Adam was open in the low post we just didn't recognize it. So many times its not about him scoring, its about getting it to him and what comes from that. They have to make a decision to help down, which gives us a better three."

On Mitchell Mays:
"Mitchell is capable of more than he's doing. I know he's probably looking for more minutes to do something, but when you do get the minutes you need to step in there and do it. He passed up a couple threes I thought if he's going to get to where he needs to be. I thought he did pass it a couple times when I thought he should have shot, but it was to someone that was even more open so I can't blame him for that. I wish he'd get a little more confident about pulling the trigger and getting the game confidence because that's a player we need to step up and start doing more."

On the team's recent struggles:
"I know we're struggling, but part of the struggle is who we're playing. These are good teams. Obviously, both are winnable games. Saturday, we should have won and had that eight-point lead late, but just didn't make plays. That's a big part of it. You're going to win big games by big players making big plays and they did that tonight."

On the advantage in turnovers and not giving teams more possessions:
"When you even think about the couple that we did have, some of those were complete slop. Just a couple shot clock violations that are sloppy, when players should know how much time is left. A lot of times we've got it on the wing with five seconds, and they have to recognize it by creating or trying to make space and take the shot. Throwing another pass to a guy on the perimeter, like what happened to Jeff a few times, its like what do I do now."

On the importance of the games now:
"We're in a position now. It's not time to panic, but it is critical for this team. I said it collectively to our team but also to individuals. I feel clearly our best three players right now are Jeff, Adam, and Joe and they're going top play a lot of minutes night in and night out. I'm looking for some consistency from some of those other spots and for someone else to step up. Hopefully we'll start getting that from Luke again. Brad's been off the bench and I'm kind of cool with continuing to do that. I like giving Cody and Alex a chance to make some things happen early in the game. The other thing is these two teams we played are clearly the top two teams in the league. The rest of the teams, we're either right there with them or we're ahead of them. Therefore, these next eleven games six at home five on the road, if we just do what we did the first 11 these are games we need to start taking control of. Even when we were on the eleven game win streak, we fooled around with teams that we were 10-15-20 points better than instead of just getting it done. That's what was concerning me all year that I felt even when we were winning we weren't constantly beating teams the way we needed to be. I felt in four of those that we were playing at somewhere near our full potential, but more often than not we fooled around. We'd get a lead by ten or twelve and then we'd let them back in the game. We're just not going to win games like this when we have those dry spells like we've had all year."

"If we could somehow get on this road trip and take care of business that six home and five away becomes 6 and 3. Then we're looking at nine games to go. A week from now things can look a whole lot better for us. We talked about this after last game, the way the NCAA region thing is starting to shake, 3rd in the Gulf South is going to be critical. It's going to be critical as far as seeding and having a home game. What we don't want to have to do is play these teams at their home. If we can finish in the top three or top four, we need to take care of Huntsville here and West Alabama. If we do that we can put ourselves in a strong 3rd spot. You never know, these teams have some tough games and play each other, so not saying we can't catch them. Right now we need to focus on that and finishing there to put us in a good spot for the regions and get a home game in the tournament, going to Birmingham with a chance to play one of these two teams in the semi-finals."

On the Rotation:
"Just us another month or month and a half to get our act together. Get some of the young guys playing a little better and more consistency. Also for me, figure out the seven guys that need to be playing. You look at them and they lead the league right now playing basically six guys. Four of them essentially play the whole game. The whole play nine or ten players, that what you do when you don't have the first six or seven stepping up and giving you what you need. That's kind of what I'm looking for right now. I'm looking for a couple of these guys to step up from our four to nine spot. For them to step up and start doing things consistently night in and night out. That's on offense and defense. Cody's consistent, you know what you're going to get defensively from him. The problem is when we're struggling offensively is why his minutes have fallen a little bit. I'll take Cody going in there scrapping and even fouling a couple of times, over someone standing out watching it. That was my challenge to all our players. Start doing things consistently from a standpoint of your defense and attacking the glass. Get your tail in there, get on the gun and get shots off. What's going to make a difference is if one starts making shots they're going to play. they're going to be open and have to step up and hit those shots because they're there. The one thing, we've got young guys and I'm probably more sure about our starting lineup in three years than I am about what we're doing even sometimes right now. We were kidding the other night thinking look at the freshmen and sophomores, we've got five of them playing minutes and that's probably our starting lineup in a couple years. As a collective team we need those guys to step up and bring it."

WHAT'S NEXT:
The Bucs head to Alabama for two games this weekend. They visit Montevallo Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. before visiting West Alabama Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. Their next home game is Thursday, Jan. 25, when they host Lee at 7 p.m.