Superior, Wis. – The Crown men's basketball team used a dominant defensive performance in the first half to build a sizeable half-time lead and cruised to an 81-49 victory over UW-Superior on Wednesday night.  Crown allowed only 14 first half points to the Yellowjackets and held the conference foe to a 32.3% shooting percentage for the game.

Crown came out of the gates with an intense defensive performance, keeping the Yellowjackets in single digits until 6:15 remaining in the first half at which point they had built a 22-11 lead.  The Storm continued forward from that point, allowing just a single basket and made free throw the rest of the half, staking themselves to a 38-14 advantage at the break. 

The Storm continued that momentum into the second half as they started on a 9-0 run to effectively put the game out of reach.  The lead would dip to 23 points at one point in the second half, but swelled to 35 near the end of the game as Crown got contributions from their bench to seal the 32 point victory.

Cade Carroll led the Storm with 25 points on an incredibly efficient 10-14 shooting performance, capped by a big dunk in transition.  Jacob Van Dam continued his hot shooting, scoring 20 points to raise his conference scoring average to 15.5 points per game, and Crown had nine other players in the scoring column on the night. 

Crown had a 40-28 advantage on the boards and held Superior to just 3-12 shooting beyond the arc in a complete performance for the Storm. 

Crown now sits at 4-3 after the first half of conference play, right in the thick of a crowded conference race.  The second half of the UMAC schedule kicks off this Saturday as Crown hosts Minnesota Morris at 4:45 p.m.