EVANSVILLE, IN. - The Lindenwood Men's Basketball team (18-14, 11-9 OVC) advanced to the OVC Tournament Quarterfinal Round with a 72-62 win over Little Rock on Wednesday night in the OVC Tournament First Round. Milos Nenadic scored a career-high 24 points in the win against the Trojans, and also knocked down a career-high 16 free throws to lift the Lions to their second all-time OVC tournament win in program history. The Lions will now face the number three seed SEMO Redhawks tomorrow night at 8:30 p.m. CT. 

Lindenwood started the first half on a 21-6 run over the first 10 minutes of the game thanks to seven points from Dontrez Williams and six points from Jadis Jones. Four of Jones' six early points were off of dunks and his second dunk of the game was a monstrous slam that extended the Lions lead to 16-6 with 12:15 left in the opening half of play. Milos Nenadic would convert on his first four free throw attempts of the game a few minutes later as Lindenwood was in full control as they pushed their lead out to as much as 18 points by a score of 27-9 with just over five minutes to go in the half. Little Rock cut the lead down to 14 at the break as the Lions took a 35-21 lead into the locker room behind 10 points from Jones followed by eight points from Nenadic and seven points from Williams. Defense was a big part of Lindenwood's success in the first half as they forced the Trojans into 12 turnovers and recorded 10 steals that led to 12 points for the Black and Gold. 

With Lindenwood still up by 14 with 18:14 to go in the contest, Little Rock went on their first big run of the game and eventually tied the game at 42 with just over 14 minutes to play. Jadis Jones and Dontrez Williams stopped the bleeding for the Lions as Jones scored on a layup and Dontrez Williams buried a left side corner three pointer to put the Lions back up by five at the under 12 media timeout. The Trojans responded to the 5-0 run by Lindenwood with a 8-2 run to grab their first lead of the game by a score of 50-49 with seven minutes left in the second half. Jones gave the Lions the lead right back on the next trip down the floor after Little Rock had taken the lead, and a few possessions later, Williams recorded a huge block at the top of the key that led to a fast break layup for Clayton Jackson to push the lead to 53-50 with 5:32 to go in the game. That would be the closest that Little Rock would get to evening the score at the end of the half as Lindenwood closed out the game by knocking down 15 of their final 16 free throw attempts to ice the game and advance to tomorrow night's OVC Quarterfinal round. Milos Nenadic made all 12 of his free throw attempts in the second half and went a perfect 16-16 from the charity stripe, which is the most in an OVC Tournament game since Reggie Bass went 17-17 last year for Lindenwood. 

Williams, Jones, and Nenadic all recorded double-doubles in the contest against Little Rock to become the first trio to ever do so in the same game in the Division I Era. Defensively, the Lions held the Trojans to 35.8% from the floor for the game and held them to 14.3% from beyond the arc. The Lions will now take on SEMO tomorrow night at 8:30 p.m. in the OVC Quarterfinal round.