Men's Basketball | August 30, 2016

PARIS- The Western Michigan men's basketbll team closed out play on its European tour with a hard-fought, 72-68, victory over ASA Sceaux, giving the Broncos their fourth win in as many games overseas.

As the games have gone on in Europe, the competition has improved and ASA Sceaux was no exception. The team had professional level players that were physically bigger and stronger than previous opponents. ASA Sceaux also had a well developed long-range game, as the French team knocked down a number of shots from behind the arc.

After getting behind early, Western Michigan had to play catch-up up most of the game battle it out at the end for a four-point victory. The Broncos trailed 24-14 after the first quarter and 40-28 at the half before outscoring ASA Sceaux by 10 in the third quarter to pull within two, 54-52, heading into the final 10-minute stanza. Sophomore center Seth Dugan had several big put backs in the fourth quarter and redshirt freshman forward Joeviar Kennedy was able to break loose for a pair of critical fast break buckets. Junior  point guard Thomas Wilder also put down key free throws while ASA Sceaux struggled from the charity stripe.

"This ended up being the best team we played against," said WMU head coach Steve Hawkins. "This is the one team coming in we really had no idea about and they ended up being a really good professional team. They were big, they were physical and they played different then the other teams we had faced, so they presented a different challenge."

"I felt like the trip might have caught up with us a little bit this game," Hawkins said. "I didn't think we had good focus to begin the game. We didn't step up physically right away and got behind early. We started to get going and then had a tremendous third quarter and it was a real ball game after that."

Dugan turned in his second double-double of the trip, leading Western Michigan with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Senior Tucker Haymond had 15 points and five rebounds, Kennedy tallied 11 points and Wilder finished with nine points and five assists.

Over the four games, Dugan averaged 13.5 points and 9.0 rebounds per game, both of which were team highs. Wilder averaged 12.8 points and 3.5 assists per game while Haymond contributed 12.5 ppg and 6.5 rpg.

The Broncos will spend a final day in Paris tomorrow before returning to the United States on Aug. 31. While in Europe Western Michigan visited three countries, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, playing four games over 10 days. The major cities visited were Amsterdam, Ghent and Paris. The team also stopped and visited the D-Day beaches at Normandy on the trip.


Game format was four 10-minute quarters.
Q1: ASA Sceaux 24, WMU 14
Q2: ASA Sceaux 20, WMU 28 (end of 1st half)
Q3: ASA Sceaux 54, WMU 52
Q4: WMU 72, ASA Sceaux 68 (final)

WMU Player Stats
0 Bryce Moore: 4p/2r/1a/3s
1 Tucker Haymond: 15p/5r/2a/2s
2 Joeviair Kennedy: 11p/1r/1a/2s
3 Josh Davis: 3p/1s
4 Jared Printy: 5p/1r/1s
10 Thomas Wilder: 9p/5a/1s
11 Ryan Wade: saw action
13 Brandon Allen: DNP
23 Reggie Jones: 2p/1a/1s
24 Adida Ikongshul: 4r/1s
35 Brandon Johnson: 7p/5r/1s
42 Drake LaMont: DNP
50 Seth Dugan: 16p/10r/2a