UNIVERSITY CENTER, Mich. – The Saginaw Valley State University men's basketball team rolled to a 78-62 win over Grand Valley State on Saturday afternoon inside of O'Neill Arena.
Senior guard Tre Garrett continued his career-best performance streak with a team-high 21 points and seven rebounds, the final board equaled 500 career rebounds for the Saginaw, Michigan native. Garrett finished the day going a perfect 9-9 at the free-throw line. The Cardinals (13-9, 6-7 GLIAC) finished the game 20-21 at the charity stripe.
SVSU got things rolling in the opening four minutes with a 9-2 run. Kevonne Taylor made the game's first bucket on the very play of the game to ignite the run. Freddie McIntosh scored a jumper for the 4-0 lead and Toodles Seal added a layup to increase the lead to six. Seal would add three more after the Lakers (9-13, 6-6 GLIAC) hit their first field goal of the contest.
GVSU regrouped with a 7-0 run that gave the game its first tie, 9-9, of the game. All four ties in the contest happened in the first half. The second happened two possessions later after traded three-point jumpers knotted things up at 12.
The Cardinals created a five-point lead before the game's third tie at 20 points happened at the 9:41 mark. Grand Valley took a small lead before Seal hit a free throw for the game's final deadlock at 22 all.
Seal hit another free throw to start a point streak of seven and the Cardinals were up 29-22 with 4:18 left on the clock. During the run, the Lakers got cold, failing to score a field goal for 7:34 (ended with a jumper at the 1:00 mark).
Curtis Jackson made two free throws to end the half with a 31-25 lead in favor of SVSU.
The second half was all Saginaw Valley as Garrett would score 16 of his 21 points in the second session. He also pulled down six boards in the frame to earn his career milestone in that category. Garrett put SVSU up by double-digits for the first time in the game at the 11:21 mark of the second when he scored a layup off a turnover for a 51-41 advantage.
Maurice Anderson hit a three-point jumper before Garrett's fastbreak point to spark the 7-0 run that resulted in a 53-41 edge for the home team.
GVSU would lower the lead to nine points with a three-pointer at 9:10, and that was the closest the team would get to catching the Cardinals.
Saginaw Valley State finished the game shooting 50.0% from the floor for the sixth time in the last seven contests. The Cardinals are 5-1 in those situations. SVSU's offensive rebounding effort also paid off, as Saginaw Valley outscored GVSU 17-3 in second-chance points.
UP NEXT
The SVSU men's hoops team will hit the road for two Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) games next week. The first is at Ferris State on Thursday, February 15 at 7:30 p.m., EST. The week will conclude with a game in Sault Ste. Marie against Lake Superior State on Saturday, February 17 at 3:00 p.m., EST.
