Braden Norris finished with 18 points and nine assists and Ryan Schwieger added 14 points as Loyola of Chicago pulled away from Vanderbilt in the second half to win 69-58 in a non-conference game Friday night in Nashville, Tenn.
Norris hit two 3-pointers and Schwieger made one during an 11-0 run in the second half, giving the Ramblers (9-2) a 53-40 lead with 10:49 left in the game. Vanderbilt (5-4) got as close as 56-49 on a basket by Jordan Wright with 5:50 left, but 3-pointers by Lucas Williamson and Norris extended the lead back to 13.
Norris went 6-for-8 from 3-point range to account for all of his scoring.
Williamson, a fifth-year senior, made a 3-pointer for Loyola’s first basket of the game to surpass the 1,000-point plateau for his college career. Williamson finished with 11 points and has 1,009. He had nine rebounds.
Scotty Pippen Jr., a junior guard who scored 14 of his game-high 23 points in the first half for the Commodores, has 998 points for his college career.
Loyola was 17-for-37 (45.9 percent) from beyond the arc but only 2-for-6 from the foul line.
After Vanderbilt’s Trey Thomas tied the score at 19 with a driving layup with 5:43 to go in the first half, the Ramblers went on a 9-3 run to open a 28-22 lead with 2:58 left. The spurt was capped by a 3-pointer by Keith Clemons off a kickout pass from the lane by Jacob Hutson.
Pippen made two foul shots for Vanderbilt to cut the lead to four, but Williamson’s layup extended the lead to 30-24. After Jamaine Mann split a pair of free throws for the Commodores, Myles Stute’s driving layup with 1:07 left in the half cut Vanderbilt’s deficit to 30-27 at intermission.
Marquise Kennedy’s 3-pointer 2:15 into the second half gave the Ramblers a 36-29 lead.
The Commodores then rallied, closing within two points on three occasions. On two of those occasions, Vanderbilt did it by making traditional three-point plays, the first one by Mann and the second one by Thomas. The latter one trimmed the Ramblers’ lead to 42-40 with 13:02 to go in the game.
–Field Level Media