Every coach that comes to play The Master's in basketball says The MacArthur Center is one of the toughest venues to play.
The Master's men's basketball team now has 13 reasons why it's so tough.
Kamrin Oriol hit a pair of key 3-pointers late in the second half on his way to a game-high 23 points as the Mustangs defeated Hope International 70-62 Saturday night in The MacArthur Center.
It was the Royals who last beat TMU at home on Feb. 2, 2023. But since that game, the Mustangs (14-5, 3-2) have won 13 in a row on their own court.
But this game was not without its drama. The Master's had as much as an 11-point lead in the first half before settling for a 35-27 lead at the half. Once again TMU opened it up to 11 points in the second half, but the Royals, struggling to find momentum throughout the game, finally hit on back-to-back threes to cut the difference to two with 5:28 to play.
That's when Oriol hit a pair of threes to push the lead back up to eight, which the Mustangs were able to maintain to the final buzzer.
"Those threes Kamrin hit in the second half were huge for us," said TMU Head Coach Kelvin Starr. "Big time players have to make big plays, and Kamrin did just that."
The Master's held HIU to just 20 of 69 (29%) shooting from the floor, 10 of 31 (32%) from behind the arc. They also won the rebound battle 46-39 while getting four blocks and six steals.
"I think defensively we were back to being where I want us to be as a coach," Starr said. "Over my career here, we've held teams to under 40% from the floor and we haven't been doing that in recent games. So to do that tonight shows we are capable of being good defensively. You've got to guard for 40 minutes… you've got to be intentional defensively for 40 minutes. That is what is required to be an elite team in our league."
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Coming into Saturday's game, TMU's offense was averaging 90.7 points per game, ranking it No. 1 in the conference and No. 10 in the nation. And while the team shot 24 of 50 (48%) from the field, including 10 of 29 from 3-point range, the Royals defense (ranked No. 9 nationally) did not give the Mustangs as many opportunities to score.
Caden Starr added 20 points in the game, including four more 3-pointers. He now has 167 made threes in his career, ranking him ninth on the Mustangs' all-time list.
Ty Harper finished with 10 points while
Jordan Caruso had a team-high 13 rebounds to go with six points and five assists.
The GSAC now has a six-way tie for first place, with six teams all holding 3-2 records after Saturday's action. The Master's, one of those six, will travel up north to play two of those 3-2 teams next week. First is Menlo on Thursday with a 7:30 tip-off, followed by Jessup on Saturday at 2 p.m.
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