MEMPHIS-The Christian Brothers University Bucs out-scored visiting Union 31-13 over the final 15 minutes as they clinched the No. 3 seed in next week's Gulf South Conference Tournament with a 71-58 win over Union Thursday night at Canale Arena.

HOW IT HAPPENED:
• A pair of JC Hawkins three-pointers sparked the Bulldogs (12-16, 6-14 GSC) to an early 8-4 lead with 18:02 remaining.
• CBU (20-8, 12-8) used an 8-0 burst to take a 17-11 edge on a Brad Miller (Cincinnati, Ohio/Elder HS) triple with 12:30 remaining in the first half, but the six-point margin was the largest lead for either team until  the final 11 minutes of the game.
• Union closed the first half on a 6-0 run to take a 35-32 halftime lead, and a 6-0 burst early in the second half gave them a 41-36 lead with 17:15 remaining on a Tyree Boykin layup.
• The Bucs' rally started nearly three minutes later, when Jeff Larkin (Cincinnati, Ohio/La Salle HS) sparked what became a 17-4 run with a jumper with 14:26 remaining. By the time he capped the run with a layup with 9:51 remaining, the Bucs led 57-49.
• CBU never allowed the Bulldogs closer than four points again as they pulled away to the 71-58 win.

KEY STATS:
• Adam Dieball (Cincinnati, Ohio/Lakota East HS) scored a game-best 23 points with six rebounds and six assists despite being limited to 29 minutes due to foul trouble. He finished 8-of-12 overall, including 3-of-5 from three-point range. He scored 21 of his 23 in the second half after being limited to nine first-half minutes by early foul trouble.
• Larkin scored 20 as he played all 40 minutes.
• Jacob Lyons (Hernando, Miss./Christian Brothers HS) logged career-highs of 16 points and eight rebounds in 32 minutes. He shot 6-of-9 overall, including 3-of-4 from beyond the arc.
• The Bucs shot 49.1 percent (26-of-53) overall, including 44.4 percent (8-of-18) from three-point range. Union finished 35.6 percent (21-of-59), including 25 percent (5-of-20) from beyond the arc.
• CBU out-rebounded the Bulldogs 37-33, but Union held an 11-9 edge on the offensive boards, with each team committing nine turnovers.

HEAD COACH MIKE NIENABER'S THOUGHTS:
"We got that 20th win which meant a lot. The guys wanted to put a notch on the banner and there's the pictures in my office of all the 20 win teams so that goes in the locker room. That matters and is one of the reasons I do it, so that it's something to shoot for. Our guys were conscious about it a couple of weeks ago when they were closing in on it after that rough January, so its meaningful. DII when you're only playing 28 games in the regular season, anytime you end up with single digits on losses you've had a pretty good year. Hopefully we can keep this thing going, one game at a time as always."

On Adam Dieball's 21-point second half:
"Obviously they took him out of the first half. He had a couple of tough fouls, but the thing again the teams in the league have changed how they guard Adam. This also shows that the teams out there are talking. They've basically the decision that they don't want to give us the open threes. They'd rather him bounce and try to wear him down. That's kind of what they're doing now and Adam's got to adjust. Obviously, the second half tonight he did a pretty good job at it."

On Jacob Lyons' performance:
"He kept us in the game there in the first half. When Adam was in foul trouble and he hit those three 3s in the first half, it really kept us in the ball game. One of the reasons we recruited him out of the gate was he could shoot it. Like everyone we try to recruit are three point shooters, so I knew t was something Jake could do if he got more comfortable. Again though offensively we're more fluid on offense when we have Alex in there. Jake still at times gets out of position. If we could ever get him to where if he starts understanding more, like when we got him the post up and back door layup, there's really not guys that can guard him. The best post player offensively is always going to be on Adam, so our Fours and our Threes have an opportunity a lot of times to get in there and do damage if they would just settle down. We finally got some good up and under moves, we got one from Adam and another from Jake and they were all big. As the game got deeper in and we built that lead to six or seven, we got some huge baskets. To get those backdoor layups that we had in those last five or six minutes are so big. First they're easy baskets for us, but what it does to them mentally on defense, when they're trying to catch-up and get burnt on a backdoor layup; I think it just mentally breaks teams down."

On the offensive rebounds late:
"We got a couple of big offensive rebounds that made it a lot easier when we were seven or eight ahead. Those are just like or even worse when you're trying to fight back into the game like they were. When you're down eight or nine points and we miss a shot and go in and dig out the rebound it just makes it so much easier."

On the free-throw shooting (11-20) and the defense:
"That will cost us before it's all over if it keeps up. Making free-throws could have made it a whole lot less painful. The thing we've done though and we're starting to do it consistently, holding those guys to just 23 points in the second half is pretty special. I thought even in the first half that we played pretty good defense. Their freshman Tyree Boykin has had an amazing year and we held him to only three points. He hit nine 3s against us last time and we took that away from him making him go 0-4. It was a little scary at the beginning of the game JC Hawkins came out and made his first two. I told our guys on the bench let him shoot them and its not that Hawkins can't make them, but you live with that. You have to give something, because Wilson is so good inside we couldn't stop him one-on-one inside so we had to help and leave Hawkins and KC Goodwin. That was a big part of what made it work for us in the second half."

On Tuesday night's GSC quarterfinal:
"Let's get that one and get back to Birmingham to see what happens. I caught Joe coming off the court tonight. He had such a good game Saturday, but a rough night tonight so he was kind of dragging, so I said Joe we survived on a tough night for you, just shake it off and let's go get the next one."

NOTABLE:
• With the win, the Bucs clinch the 17th 20-win season in school history, the first since 2012-13 and the seventh under Mike Nienaber.

GSC TOURNAMENT:
The Bucs clinched the No. 3 seed in next week's GSC Tournament, finishing at 12-8. Valdosta State earned the top seed at 18-2, followed by second-seeded West Florida at 17-3. Lee and Delta State finished tied for fourth at 11-9, with North Alabama and Montevallo tied for sixth at 10-10. West Georgia earned the No. 8 seed at 9-11.

WHAT'S NEXT:
The Bucs host sixth-seeded North Alabama Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in the GSC quarterfinals. UNA clinched the No. 6 seed with a last-second three-pointer by Kendarius Smith. The winner advances to the semifinals Saturday night at 7:15 p.m. at the Pete Hanna Center in Homewood, Ala. against the winner between second-seeded West Florida and seventh-seeded Montevallo. The championship game is set for Sunday afternoon at 3:30 p.m.