Wheaton advances again

The Wheaton Thunder men's basketball team used a strong second half to earn a 68-40 victory over Penn State-Behrend on Saturday night in the second round of the NCAA Division III Tournament.

Wheaton is 21-8 on the year and advances to a NCAA sectional semifinal next Friday against Dickinson College. The location of next week's sectional will be announced by the NCAA on Sunday.

"As I told the team in the locker room, we have rattled off four straight wins against teams that earned 20 wins at least on the season and we have done it because we have just started to defend at a ridiculously high rate," Thunder coach Mike Schauer said. "Tonight was an example of that, Penn State-Behrend is a great team and we simply dismantled them offensively and have done that now for several nights in a row."

Brayden Teuscher led the Thunder in scoring with 14 points and 3 assists. Tyler Peters scored 13 points, with 7 assists. He added 6 rebounds and 3 steals. Nate Haynes tallied his eighth double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Caleb DeMoss scored 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the field.

Wheaton shot 47.3 percent from the field, with 50 percent from 3-point range and 87.5 percent. The Lions shot just 25 percent from the floor in the second half on their way to 30.2 percent for the game

Keith Wallace led Penn State-Behrend (23-5) with 10 points and he added 4 rebounds. Casey Courneen scored 10 points with 3 assists for the Lions. Zane Hackett scored 6 points and grabbed 7 rebounds.