EDWARDSVILLE – SIUE men's basketball led nearly wire to wire on its way to a 78-69 win over Green Bay Wednesday night at First Community Arena.

The Cougars improved to 6-4 overall and 4-0 at home. Green Bay is 4-5. Green Bay is the seventh opponent in 10 games that SIUE has kept under 70 points.

"Our preparation going into the game was very good," SIUE Head Coach Brian Barone said. "(Assistant Coach) Colin Schneider put together the scout, but it is our guys who tells us what they need. They stayed true to what we worked on the last three days. That game was won by what they did over the last few days."

Green Bay scored the first basket of the game, but SIUE responded with the next seven points and never trailed in the game again. A Ray'Sean Taylor basket with 8:20 to go before half made it a seven-point lead for the Cougars, but Green Bay trimmed it back to two (26-24) at 4:42. Damarco Minor's three-pointer with 34 seconds to play before the break gave SIUE a 33-27 lead at half.

The Cougars opened the second half on a 13-3 burst to push the lead to 16 points with 15:49 left in the game. The Phoenix got as close as eight on two separate occasions, but never any closer.

SIUE shot 43 percent (22-51) from the field but went 28-39 (72 percent) at the free throw line.

"That was huge," Barone said of the number of free throws. "It was because of our tempo. Our tempo was really good early. We had 11 assists, but with 39 attempts, there are a minimum of five other assists there that we just didn't make the basket and it led to free throws. Our ball movement was good."

SIUE turned the ball over just eight times, while forcing 14 turnovers by Green Bay. Six of those came from leading scorer Noah Reynolds.

"We turned Noah Reynolds over six times, and had only eight ourselves," Barone said. "That tells you that we've been really focused. We didn't have any loose ball turnovers which allows us to set our defense."

Taylor led SIUE with a season-high 23 points. He was 6-12 from the field and 8-9 at the free throw line. Taylor now has 997 points in his SIUE career. Minor pitched in 18 points. He was 4-11 from the field and also was 8-9 at the free throw line. Lamar (15) and Shamar (10) Wright also scored in double figures for the Cougars. Lamar added two blocks and Shamar grabbed four steals. Terrance Thompson scored six points and hauled in a game-high nine rebounds. He added two assists and a steal.

Reynolds paced Green Bay with 20 points.

SIUE returns to the road for a Sunday game at Ball State.

"You're going into a MAC opponent's home court," Barone said. "This is another challenge that our teams needs."

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