ADA, Okla. – Building on their big road win on Thursday night at Southeastern Oklahoma, the Arkansas Tech men's basketball team made it an extremely successful trip to the Sooner State as they beat East Central on their home court by a score of 68-60 on Saturday afternoon.
The win is the Wonder Boys' (7-5, 5-1 GAC) seventh in their last eight games, and is also their fourth away from Tucker Coliseum. The mark for road wins is tied for the most since the 2018-19 season and is more than the previous three season combined as well.
Tech is also now out to a 5-1 start in Great American Conference play, marking their best six-game start in GAC play all-time, and the best overall six-game start in conference action since 2010-11.
Fueling their win against the Tigers (7-5, 2-4 GAC) was a balanced scoring effort with four players in double figures and another collective hard-nosed defensive effort by the Wonder Boys.
Andre Leavell led the way in scoring for the Wonder Boys with 19 points on 6-of-13 shooting overall. He was also 1-of-2 from long range and 6-of-8 from the free throw line. Leavell filled out the rest of his stat sheet with four rebounds and five assists as he appears to be a triple-double waiting to happen.
Taelon Peter was next in scoring with 15 points. Peter added seven rebounds, two steals and one assist to his ledger. D'Rell Roberts was a factor off the bench with 12 points. All of his three field goals makes were from three-point range.
Niko Gosnell rounded out double-figure scoring with 11 points. He was a perfect 4-of-4 from the floor and 3-of-4 from the charity stripe.
Entering the weekend, East Central averaged 76.1 pgg on offense and shot just over 50% as a team. In Saturday's game against Tech, however, the Wonder Boys limited the Tigers to 60 points on just over 40% shooting overall.
Perhaps the most significant defensive stat that played out in the game was the fact that the Wonder Boys had 25 defensive rebounds and only allowed ECU to record two offensive rebounds, which resulted in zero second-chance points for the Tigers.
On the other end, Tech was able to haul in seven offensive boards and turn those into 13 second-chance points. It also helped the Wonder Boys out-rebound ECU by nine (33-23).
The Wonder Boys will now prepare for a big week at home as they play host to Southern Nazarene on Thursday night and Oklahoma Baptist on Saturday afternoon. SNU will come into the Thursday night game as the hottest team in the GAC as they are winners of eight-straight. The Crimson Storm are also the lone unbeaten team in the GAC at 6-0. Oklahoma Baptist, who will play Harding before Tech, is off to a solid start and will enter the weekend 4-2 in the GAC.
