PORTSMOUTH – Men's basketball dropped the second half of its MSC opening weekend with a 74-48 loss at home against Cumberland Saturday afternoon. The Bulldogs (6-0, 2-0 MSC) jumped out to a 38-21 lead at the half and never looked back in the win over the Bears (5-3, 1-1 MSC).

Marquel Hickerson scored a game-high 31 points to lead the Bulldogs' offense as CU shot 24-of-51 from the field, including 9-of-19 from beyond the arc. Shawnee was led offensively by with 14 points from Trevor Banks while Andrew Devlin added 10 points.

Things started off badly for the Bears and never turned around on Saturday. Just over 10 minutes into the contest, CU had taken a 20-9 lead. The next 10 minutes would be almost just as bad as SSU was outscored 18-12 and trailed by 17 points at the end of the opening half.

By the 14:46 mark of the second half, Cumberland led 56-26 – giving the Bulldogs their largest lead of the contest. The Bulldogs were able to just wait for the game to come to them the rest of the way and ended up the 74-48 side of the scoreboard.

The Bears will now look to distance themselves from this game as they have nine days before they get back on the road at West Virginia Tech. They will play a total of five non-conference games during the month of December. After the month of December, it will be all Mid-South Conference games starting in January.