MEMPHIS-The Christian Brothers University Bucs shot a season-best 61.4 percent as they cruised to a 96-76 win over North Alabama in the quarterfinals of the VisitSpaceCoast.com Gulf South Conference Championships.

HOW IT HAPPENED:
• Joe Laravie (Kettering, Ohio/Alter HS) scored seven of his game-high 31 in the first two minutes as the Bucs (21-8) took early leads of 10-3 and 15-5, the latter on a Cody Garbuzinski (Memphis, Tenn./Christian Brothers HS) triple with 15:10 remaining int he first half, and the Bucs never allowed UNA (15-13) closer than six points again.
• A 6-0 burst capped by a Luke Rudy (Cincinnati, Ohio/Oak Hills HS) triple gave the Bucs a 21-9 lead with 12:09 remaining in the half, and the Lions never came closer than 10 points again.
• An 8-0 burst capped by a Jeff Larkin (Cincinnati, Ohio/La Salle HS) triple gave CBU a 45-23 lead with 1:51 remaining in the first half.
• The Lions used a 12-3 run early in the second half to pull within 53-41 on a pair of Jeff Hodge free throws with 16:04 remaining, but the Bucs answered with five straight, capped by an Adam Dieball (Cincinnati, Ohio/Lakota East HS) three-point play, to take a 61-43 lead and they never allowed UNA closer than 15 again as they led by as many as 23 points in the final minutes.

KEY STATS:
• Laravie tied his career-high with 31 points in 35 minutes, shooting 12-of-17 from the field including 6-of-10 from three-point range.
• Dieball scored 21 with seven assists in 34 minutes. He was a perfect 7-of-7 inside the arc.
• Larkin scored 11 with eight rebounds, seven assists and three steals in 37 minutes.
• Alex Trentman (Alexandria, Ky./Bishop Brossart HS) scored 11 with four rebounds and two blocks in 16 minutes off the bench.
• Brad Miller (Cincinnati, Ohio/Elder HS) added nine with three assists and two steals.
• Jacob Lyons (Hernando, Miss./Christian Brothers HS) dished out a career-best five assists.
• The Bucs shot a season-best 61.4 recent (35-of-57) from the field, including 45.5 percent (15-of-33) from three-point range and a sizzling 83.3 percent (20-of-24) inside the arc. UNA finished 41.3 percent, including 26.1 percent (6-of-23) from beyond the arc.
• The Lions out-rebounded CBU 42-29, including a 22-4 edge in offensive boards, but they committed 12 turnovers to the Bucs' eight.

HEAD COACH MIKE NIENABER'S THOUGHTS:
On the overall performance:
"I felt like everybody that played really contributed and did really positive things. I thought Alex played great, made a couple of big 3s and you can just go down the line. I thought Brad played great, if you had a sixth man award; Brad would have a really good shot at getting it coming off the bench and doing what he does."

On Adam Dieball:
"Watching the film of our last game against them Adam was on fire from three, he hit four or five. If you were to tell me he was going to go 0-7 from three tonight, I would've been concerned. He was 7-7 around the basket thought and made so many great plays and had so many great passes. He got them in foul trouble and did everything you want your post player to do. Like we talked about before the game you don't want to live and die by the three, you want to move it around. Even though Adam did miss those, I felt the ones he took were the ones we wanted him to take, a lot were late in the shot clock and that's what we want. If we don't get stuff early in the offense and don't get it inside, then we take that late one and more times than not that shot goes in because there's no pressure. I think it's one of the least pressured shots in the game when that shot clock is running down.  I don't like to harp on Adam, but then him and Jeff were a combined 1 for 11 from 3 and we were 15-33 overall. That's almost 50% with our All-Conference guys not hitting them from 3 tonight."

On Alex Trentman:
"Towards the end what you see is Trentman is really comfortable playing in there with Adam. We got two or three really easy baskets when they got overloaded on Adam and he slipped it to Alex under the basket. That's the one that Jakes not quite there yet as a first year freshman. He's not quite looking for some of those, sometimes he's standing outside when he should be slicing underneath. Now a kick out three isn't bad when you're wide open, but we'll take the layup anytime.  Now you're not going to get every hold call and people definitely hold. If you're playing against us and one of our guy has half a step on you in those cuts it's almost a defensive back taking a pass-interference instead of giving up the touchdown, that happens a lot when we do that backdoor."

On UNA's aggressive start to the second half:
"It was a miracle that first half, because they had 11 offensive rebounds and only maybe two second chance points. I'm not sure how that happened. They're so athletic and physical. There were times where I felt we went to sleep on the rebounding but for the most part it's just hard for us to keep them off the glass and it's hard for us against most teams to do that. We did it enough though to hang in there."

On Jeff Larkin:
"The biggest thing for us as a team with Jeff, when he has 6 or 7 assists or more that's when we're at our best. He creates so much and is almost like an option QB, he keeps the ball and brings so much to him defensively. When he makes those reads the other players get focused on him and miss guys like Joe who had two or three shots off plays like that. Joe went 6-10 from three and that was big, but he also had six other field goals and at least 2 or 3 of them were those backdoors from Jeff."

On the team peaking at the right time:
"I feel like we're playing the best we have all year right now. These last few games going to Montgomery and winning that game by twenty, taking care of Union in a game we had to have when there wasn't any pressure on them, taking care of these teams the way we have is encouraging. West Florida obviously might be another story and is playing as good as anyone in the region right now though."

"We really played a good game that night against Delta. We deserved to win that game but just didn't. I think our leadership on the team and our veterans showed what they're made of a bit showing they can bounce back. Hopefully we'll look back at this and say that we really peaked at the right time. We've played three really good games.  You look at this game and beating North Alabama, but they've been playing really well the last couple weeks. They had several really good wins in the last few weeks."

"The problem is we're down here and making four passes and back cuts, and they just come down give Stafford the ball and he just goes. We've got no answer, I mean we have guys trying to say in front of the kid, but he's just so athletic and such a good player. He's capable of making those shots at the rim or dumping it off when he drives. We went zone for a little while to try and break it up and finally got some stops. For a little while though I thought he was going to bring them back singlehandedly."

Looking ahead:
"The simple thing for us to do is obviously not to continue giving up twenty-two offensive rebounds. That was a little ugly. A lot of it was their athleticism. The thing is when you get to this point in the GSC, the teams that are still playing are all great rebounding teams. Valdosta has always been a great rebounding team; West Florida is one of the best rebounding teams in the region and clearly one of the best teams in the region. They've had an amazing year, both of those teams that we have potential matchups with in Birmingham if we're fortunate enough to get to Sunday. It's going to take extremely good basketball to win this weekend, but we're capable of it. It's just a matter of going down there and getting it done."

WHAT'S NEXT:
The Bucs advance to this weekend's semifinals in the VisitSpaceCoast.com GSC Championships, where they will face No. 12/12 West Florida, the No. 2 seed, after the Argos' 83-74 win over Montevallo. Saturday's semifinal will be at 7:15 p.m. at the Pete Hanna Center in Homewood, Alabama. The other semifinal will feature No. 14/14 Valdosta State, the top seed, who won 106-90 over West Georgia, and fifth-seeded Delta State, who won 68-58 at Lee.