USI reaches semis for fourth-straight year
 
FINAL SCORE: #20 USI 92, #23 Lewis 74
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EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The 20^th-ranked University of Southern Indiana men's basketball team advanced to the semifinals of the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament with a 92-74 victory over 23^rd-ranked Lewis University at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana. USI rises to 23-5 overall, while Lewis falls to 21-6 in 2013-14.  
 
The Screaming Eagles advance to play top-seeded and fourth-ranked Drury University Saturday at 6 p.m. USI lost to Drury at the PAC, 64-56, in January. Today's victory also marked the second-straight year that USI has defeated Lewis in the GLVC quarterfinals.
 
The Eagles burst out of the gate in the opening five minutes, building an 11-point advantage, 15-4. Senior forward Orlando Rutledge (Louisville, Kentucky) led the initial charge with a pair of three-point bombs in the first five minutes.
 
USI saw its lead shrink to as few as six points before pushing the lead back to 11 points three more times in the opening 10 minutes. The Flyers began to chip away at the USI advantage until they trailed the Eagles by two points, 41-39 with 40 seconds left before halftime.
 
The Eagles' junior guard Gavin Schumann (Cincinnati, Ohio) would have the final say of the first half when his dunk with three ticks left on the clock gave USI a 43-39 halftime advantage. Schumann's dunk came after he stole a Lewis pass in the back court.
 
USI finished the half with the hot hand from outside, hitting 55.6 percent from the field (15-27) and 62.5 percent from long range (5-8).
 
The USI halftime advantage continued to grow in the first 10 minutes of the finals half, reaching 18 points, 67-49, on a three-pointer by Rutledge with 12:16 left to play. The Eagles would get the lead to as many as 20 points, 83-63, with 4:21 remaining on another three-pointer by Rutledge.
 
Lewis would try to fight its way back into the contest, whittling down USI's margin to 13 points, 87-74, before the Eagles got the final five points for the 92-74 victory.
 
Individually, Rutledge led five USI players in double-figures with 23 points. He was seven-of-14 from the field, four-of-nine from beyond the three-point arc, and five-of-six from the charity stripe.
 
Schumann and senior forward Taylor Wischmeier (Brownstown, Indiana) followed with 16 points and 15 points, respectively. Schumann had six field goals, including two from long range, while Wischmeier was six-of-eight from the field, six-of-eight from the line, and grabbed nine rebounds.
 
USI senior guard Lawrence Thomas (Springfield, Illinois) was third in the scoring column with 14 points, including a pair of three-point field goals and tied a season-high for the third game this year with eight assists.
 
USI senior center Aaron Nelson (Chicago Heights, Illinois), who was honored prior to the game as the GLVC co-Player of the Year, rounded out the double-figure scorers with 12 points and posted his school-record 23^rd double-double with a team-high 11 rebounds. The 11 boards also gave him the USI single-season record of 340, surpassing the mark of 332 set by Chris Thompson in 2005-06.