BOXSCORE

Wheaton, Ill. –The Thunder men's basketball team, ranked 14th in this week's D3hoops.com Top-25 poll, defeated Millikin 72-55 on Wednesday night in King Arena. Thunder All-American Kent Raymond scored a game-high 24 points to move into second place on Wheaton's all-time scoring list with 2,063 career points as he passed the 2,044 career points tallied by Marv Johnson (1947-51) early in the game.

Millikin never led in tonight's contest, however, the two teams battled through a tightly contested first half. A layup by Millikin's Joscar Demby tied the game at 19-19 with 4:55 remaining in the first half. Wheaton regained the lead at 21-19 on a Raymond layup with 4:16 remaining before halftime. Raymond's basket began an 8-2 Thunder scoring run over the final 4:16 of the first half to give Wheaton a 27-21 lead at halftime.

Wheaton built a nine-point lead over the first five minutes of the second half, however, Millikin battled back to cut the hosts' lead to four points at 39-35 with 14:00 remaining. Wheaton put together an 11-3 run over the next 5:05 to extend its lead to 14 points at 52-38 with 8:54 remaining in the game. Wheaton's lead was as large as 22 points in the final minutes of the game as the Thunder secured the victory, its 14th consecutive win against the Big Blue.

In addition to Raymond's game-high 24 points, Ben Panner scored 18 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the field. Freshman forward Tim McCrary scored 12 points, with five assists, five rebounds and two blocked shots. Senior center Andy Wiele scored seven points, with eight rebounds and three assists. Sophomore guard Andrew Jahns scored seven points and he distributed a career-high eight assists off the Thunder bench.

Corey Mitchell led Millikin with a team-high 14 points and three assists. Tunde Ogunleye scored 13 points, with six rebounds and Demby scored 10 points, with six boards.

Wheaton shot 47.5% (28-59) from the field, including 60.7% (17-28) in the second half. The Thunder went 2-for-11 (18.2%) from three-point range and shot 93.3% (14-15) at the free throw line. Millikin recorded a 45.3% (24-53) field goal percentage in the game, with 60% (3-5) from three-point range and 50% (4-8) at the free throw line. Wheaton out-rebounded the Big Blue 34-27, with an 11-8 edge on the offensive glass.

With the win Wheaton improves to 17-3 overall and 6-3 in conference play. Millikin is now 13-7 on the season, with a 3-6 record in conference play. Wheaton will host North Park on Saturday night in a 7:30 PM tipoff. Saturday's game will be broadcast in the Wheaton area on WETN radio (88.1 FM) and WETN-TV (Channel 72), with live streaming video online at www.wetn.org. Live in-game statistics will also be available online.