SPRINGFIELD – Jared Ridder scored a career-high 23 points, and Missouri State never trailed here Sunday, rolling to a 94-49 win over visiting Missouri S&T and pushing the Bears to their best 10-game start since 2010.
MSU (9-1) also got 22 points from Isiaih Mosley – his eighth straight 20-point scoring game – while Ja’Monta Black and Gaige Prim each pitched in 10 points for the home side.
The Bears scored the game’s first 11 points, taking less than four minutes to push ahead by double figures for the first time. The visiting Miners got the deficit down to four points twice before the 11-minute mark, first on a triple by Ryan Parker that made it 13-9 and later on a trey from Julien Smith that made it a 16-12 game at the 11:43 mark.
Smith finished with 15 points for the Miners, with teammate Nathan Elmer adding 12 points behind four 3-pointers for Missouri S&T.
Eight minutes later, Darian Scott gave MSU its biggest lead of the first half on an alley-oop dunk that made it a 37-19 contest. S&T added two more long-range bombs before the break to pull within 39-25 at the intermission.
But the second half was all Missouri State. Ridder dropped in three treys in the first two-and-a-half minutes, and before the visitors scored their first field goal of the final period, the Bears had a 65-30 advantage behind a 26-5 outburst.
With 11 minutes to go, Mosley caught fire, ripping off 10 of his 18 second-half points in a three-minute stretch. His first of two 3-pointers in the run doubled up the Miners, 76-38.
Down the stretch, the Bears got their freshmen into the act with Skylar Wicks and Elijah Bridgers scoring four and five points, respectively. Later, senior Spencer Brown and Bridgers hit back-to-back 3-pointers before the final media timeout. Bridgers’ shot gave the Bears their biggest lead of the game at 47.
The win was the 10th in a row at JQH Arena for Missouri State, while shot 64.3 percent in the second half (18-for-28) and 30-of-58 (.517) for the game.
Prim extended his double-figure scoring streak to 22 games in a row, and Mosley became the first Bear to post eight straight 20-point contests since Daryel Garrison in 1974.
On the evening, the Bears were 11-of-29 (.379) from 3-point distance and 23-for-32 (.719) at the foul line with a 51-32 rebounding advantage. MSU’s rebounding total was its highest since snagging 56 boards against William Jewell on Dec. 30, 2018.
Missouri S&T finished 16-of-65 (.246) from the field, 10-of-39 (.256) from long range and 7-for-13 (.538) at the line. The Miners’ 13 offensive rebounds led to 14 second-chance points.
The game against Missouri S&T was the 140th meeting between the teams since 1910. They had not met on the hardwood since 1981, however. The game was added to the Bears schedule late Friday evening after Missouri State’s original weekend opponent, Drake, had positive COVID-19 tests among its Tier 1 personnel which forced that series to be pushed back to Jan. 26-27.
