CHICAGO.—The Illinois Institute of Technology men's basketball team hosted Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference foe UW-Platteville for a Tuesday-night battle at the Keating Sports Center. The Pioneers led from start-to-finish in a 70-35 victory over the Scarlet Hawks.
"Today was tough, Platteville was better than us in all areas," said Scarlet Hawks head men's basketball coach Todd Kelly. "They outplayed us, out-coached us, and were a lot tougher than we were today. We need to take this as a lesson and realize that we have 21 more games and 19 conference games to go. We still have a chance to have a good season, but today we were thoroughly outplayed."
The Scarlet Hawks fall to 0-4, 0-1 NACC while UW-Platteville stays unbeaten at 6-0, 0-0 WIAC.
The Pioneers kicked-off the contest with a 10-0 run, which provoked an IIT timeout with 16:02 left in the opening half. The breather paid dividends for the Scarlet Hawks as they erupted for a 10-3 run capped by an Otis Reale jump shot with 12:54 left in the first half, which narrowed the Pioneers' lead to 13-10. That gap wouldn't close further as UW-Platteville closed the half with a 18-9 run en route to a 31-19 halftime edge. IIT was held to just 5-of-19 (.263) shooting in the second half, where Platteville cruised to a 70-35 win.
Max Hisatake, who notched a trio of blocks, paced the Scarlet Hawks in scoring with 11 points while Ricardo Whitehead led the way on the boards with five rebounds. Quentin Shields led the Pioneers with 18 points while Justin Stovall rounded out the double-figure scorers with 12 points.
The Scarlet Hawks will return to action on Saturday, November 30 at Aurora University for a 2:00 p.m. start.