Wheaton, Ill. - The Wheaton men's basketball team, ranked 12th in this week's D3hoops.com Top-25 Poll, returned to conference play on Wednesday night with a 76-71 victory in King Arena against North Park (10-3, 3-1 CCIW). Wheaton is now 11-2 on the season, with a 3-1 record in conference play as the Thunder are part of a four-way tie in first in the CCIW standings. The Thunder take to the road on Saturday for a 4:15 p.m. cosntest in Decatur against Millikin.

TJ Askew (PICTURED LEFT) led Wheaton tonight with 19 points, four assists and five rebounds. Andrew Williams contributed 17 points off the Thunder bench. Eli Considine scored 14 points, with eight rebounds and seven assist in an outstanding performance. Nick Schiavello added 12 points, Micah Schnyders tallied seven points and Eddie Scott registered six points.

Wheaton posted a 47.2% (25-of-53) field goal percentage tonight, including 23.1% (3-of-13) from three-point range. North Park shot 39.7% (25-of-63) from the field, including 35.7% (5-of-14) behind the three-point arc. Wheaton tallied 79.3% (23-of-29) at the free throw line and the Vikings had a 61.5% (16-of-26) effort at the charity stripe. North Park had a 37-35 edge in rebounding with a 14-8 advantage on the offensive glass for the guests. The Thunder bench played a key role tonight out-scoring the Vikings' reserves 24-7, led by Willams' 17 points.

The game's first five minutes were tightly contested as the Vikings' led 10-9 with 13:40 left in the first half when Askew made a basket that sparked a key run for the hosts. Askew's basket ignited a 13-2 Thunder run as Wheaton built up a 10-point lead at 22-12 with 7:45 remaining before halftime. Askew scored seven of Wheaton's 13 points in the Thunder scoring surge. The Vikings responded with six unanswered points to trim Wheaton's advantage to 22-18 with 6:00 left in the opening half. Wheaton continued to lead in the first half as the Thunder led 32-26 at halftime. Askew led all players in first-half scoring with nine points, adding four rebounds with two assists. Kolden Vanlandingham led North Park with eight first-half points.

North Park came out strong in the second half as the guests scored the first six points of the half to tie the game at 32-32 with 18:20 remaining in the second half. The guests' strong start continued as those six points were part of a 14-2 NPU run in the first 5:10 of the half as the Vikings built a 40-34 lead with 14:50 remaining in the game. The Vikings led 56-55 with 8:25 left in the game when Schiavello made a layup that started a 14-4 Thunder run that gave the hosts the lead for good as Wheaton led by nine at 67-58 with 6:30 remaining in the game. After that point the closest the Vikings could get was a five-point deficit as the Thunder emerged with the 76-71 victory. Williams led Wheaton with 11 points in the second half and Askew added 10 points. Considine added nine points with four assists and seven rebounds in the final 20 minutes. Schiavello added seven second-half points. Shamar Pumphrey tallied 12 points for the Vikings in the final half.