Leading by forty-two at the halftime break, the Barton Community College men's basketball team put it in cruise control in second half action for a 95-41 victory over Wilbur Wright College.
Allowing just the third least points scored against the Barton program historically, the Cougars improve to 4-1 while Wilbur slips to 1-3. Barton will cap off the Classic at 7:30 p.m. against Victoria College as the Pirates dropped to 0-4 after getting outgunned 121-95 to 6th ranked Hutchinson Community College. The Blue Dragons and Wilbur will play the earlier 3:00 p.m. Classic game to wind up their two-game visit to Great Bend.
Twelve of the thirteen Cougars scored during the night, each playing at least twelve minutes with none on the court more than nineteen minutes.
Aime Rutayisire led Barton on a career high performance of 17 points and 10 rebounds to post his first collegiate double-double. Andrii Basovets was the only other Cougar in double figures, also coming off the bench to post career highs of 15 points on 3-of-5 deep shooting and hauling down seven rebounds.
Timelhin Odeyungbo paced the Rams with 11 points and 8 rebounds while David Lucas added 10 points.
Barton put the first nine points on the board before Wilbur as able to connect on its first field goal at the 16:19 mark. While the Rams struggled to put points on the board, Barton added to its lead with a 23-1 stretch over the next ten minutes until a Donald McCurdy three-pointer ended Wilbur's field goal drought.
Joseph Locandro scored 9 points in eight minutes to begin the long stretch with Rutayisire adding eight.
Barton shot 45.7% in first half action before a 50% second half upped the Cougars to 47.9% for the game including 10-of-27 from beyond the arc.
Wilbur managed just two field goals in the first twenty minutes shooting 7.1% but got off to a good start in second half play in shooting 40.6% to finish at just 25%.
The Rams outscored Barton by two in the first three minutes of the final frame before Ring Malith's trey and personal five point spurt flipped the early momentum back to the Cougars in riding out the victory.