CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. – The Trine University men's basketball team used a phenomenal defensive effort to upend the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 54-38. The Thunder swept their opponents at the Great Lakes Invitational and are now 4-0 on the season.
Emmanuel Megnanglo was a catalyst on the defensive end of the floor with six blocks, tying his career-high. He is up to third in the program's individual career recordbook with his 98th career shot turned away. "We practiced a lot of ball screen defense," Megnanglo pointed out in the postgame media availability. "If a teammate gets tired or is out of positioning, I can alert him and say "hey get in the gap!" or "there's a guy open!" It's about knowing your team and communicating defensively."
The communication helped the team to hold the Fightin' Engineers to 12-of-50 from the field and 1-for-14 from beyond the arc and forced 22 turnovers. "We tried to keep [the ball] on one side of the floor," Head coach Brooks Miller mentioned. "We focused on staying on the top shoulder and keeping the ball out of the middle of the floor. We tried to force the high ball screen back to the side it came from and I thought we executed and did enough to frustrate them."
Megnanglo got the game started with a dunk off a feed by his post partner Brent Cox on the opening possession. Megnanglo returned the favor the next time down the floor when Megnanglo was credited with an assist to Cox on a three. Ryan Preston joined the party offensively during the team's 11-0 run to start the game. It was not until 13:10 into the first half when the Fightin' Engineers got their first basket.
Connor Jones hit consecutive shots and made a free throw for five straight Thunder points to extend the advantage and Jackson Jannsen checked into the game late and connected on a pair of jump shots to withstand a scoring run from Rose-Hulman. Trine carried a double-digit lead into the halftime break at 28-18.
The Fightin' Engineers got to within seven to open the second half, but a jump shot by Nate Carbaugh helped to spark the offense. A mid-range jumper by Grant Pahl extended the lead to 13 at 40-27 at the 12:19 mark, forcing Rose-Hulman into a timeout.
A technical foul on the Fightin' Engineers helped manufacture a 6-0 run for Trine. Cox had four points in the spurt, including the technical free throw and a three-point field goal. A Pahl steal led to a Megnanglo dunk in transition to claim the team's largest lead of the afternoon at 50-30.
The Thunder defense kept Rose-Hulman without a field goal over the course of the final four minutes and allowed just two points in that time on free throws to get to the 54-38 final score.
Cox led all scorers with 17 and had four steals and was named to the 2022 All-Great Lakes Invitational Team. Jones with 13 points and Megnanglo with 10 were the other players in double digits. Trine got the win despite a massive rebounding disparity: 47-26 in favor of Rose-Hulman.
After the Thanksgiving holiday, the Thunder return home to the MTI Center on Sunday, November 27. Trine versus Capital University begins at 2 p.m.