The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

SEVERAL 20-point performances highlighted the play from Bahamians over the weekend in NCAA Division I basketball.

Charles Bain posted a career-high while Lashann Higgs and Travis Munnings exhibited the senior leadership their respective programmes expect them to sustain over the course of the season.

Bain scored 25 points as his Robert Morris Colonials concluded a two-game road trip to open its 2018-19 campaign with a 74-60 loss to Missouri State at JQH Arena as part of the 2018 National College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic.

The sophomore forward shot 8-18 from the field, was 3-8 from three and added five rebounds and two blocked shots in 31 minutes.

He scored 14 of the Colonials' 29 points in the first half as they trailed by just four.

"We got a sense early that Bain would have some favourable matchups, and I thought he came out with really good focus," Colonials head coach Andrew Toole said. "He was basically our offence in the first half. He made a lot of really nice plays and made some really good decisions. The energy was there with Charles. We just need that consistency from more guys."

As a freshman last season, Bain averaged 5.3 points and 2.9 rebounds in just over 17 minutes per game.

Higgs opened the season with the fifth 20-point game of her Longhorns career as the No. 11/8 Texas women's basketball team defeated Duquesne 78-41 in their season opener at the Frank Erwin Center.

She finished with 20 points on 9-16 shooting in just 23 minutes. It was a career high 16 field goal attempts and she also added five rebounds, four assists and two steals.

Higgs got off to a quick start, scoring the first five points of the game for the Longhorns, as Texas jumped out to a 24-7 lead by the end of the first quarter. Texas entered the locker room at halftime with a 25-point lead (37-12) and cruised to the win.

Travis Munnings finished with a game high 23 points and nine rebounds en route to leading the University of Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks to a 94-52 win over Millsaps College at Fant-Ewing Coliseum.

"Travis is a four-year player, but sometimes you have to reteach an old dog new tricks," Warhawks head coach Keith Richard said. "Can't orchestrate every shot for him. He has to get some on his own and once he did, that was a big part of us playing good offence."

Munnings was 7-11 from the field. "We just had to slow down a little bit and share the basketball," Munnings said. "Once we started making the right decisions, our offence picked up and that's something we need to do in every game."

Calvin Anderson also got his first score of the season with three points and two rebounds in six minutes.

The Warhawks lead the all-time series 5-1, including a 4-0 record in games played in Monroe.

Senior guard Jaron Cornish stuffed the stat sheet for the Stony Brook Seawolves in their 83-81 win over the South Carolina Gamecocks at the Colonial Life Arena.

Cornish nearly finished with a double double. He posted eight points, eight rebounds and five assists.

He scored six of his eight points during a 2:30 stretch in the second half to extend the Stony Brook lead to 66-57 with 7:29 left in the second half.

In the SEC, coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin suffered her first loss at Ole Miss when the Rebels fell 66-58 to IUPUI at The Pavilion. "I knew this was going to be a challenging game for us. To play a team like IUPUI that has just come off a postseason run and brought all of their players back, you can tell that they've been playing for a long time," said McPhee-McCuin.

"Right now, we're learning how to win, and we're learning how to win through adversity. In order to win, you can't just want to win in your heart. You have to be willing to do what it takes, and IUPUI did what it took to win on the road."