Trevonta Robertson, Samuel Kalwanyi and Tyrone Davis led Wayland Baptist to a 68-44 blowout victory over Central Methodist (Missouri) in the opening round of the NAIA Division I Men’s Basketball National Championship on Wednesday night.
Robertson scored 23 points, Kalwanyi added 10 points while Davis contributed scoring 14 points on a perfect night as the Pioneers advanced to the last sixteen.
At the second round Wayland will face last year’s tournament runners-up Life University (Georgia) on Friday in Municipal Auditorium. Life knocked out William Carey (Mississippi), 68-67.
Wayland led by seven at the half, 31-24 and scored the first eight points of the second half to take command of the game and the Eagles didn’t get closer than 10 points the rest of the way.
Kalwanyi grabbed nine rebounds and had five blocks to go along with the 10 points leaving head coach Ty Harrelson impressed.
“Sammy was awesome today,” Harrelson said as quoted by the Pioneers website. “All four of our bigs were good. Kraig (Shields), Rokas (Mazionis) and Marko (Zelic) didn’t play a lot of minutes, but they were all solid.”
The win was Wayland’s first at nationals having dropped their last three games in Kansas City.
With 15 points, Terrance Bush was the only Eagle in double digit scoring.
If Wayland defeat William Carey on Friday, they will face either LSU Shreveport or the winner between Columbia College (Missuori) and Campbellsville University (Kentucky) on Saturday afternoon.
“We’ll use tomorrow to rest and prepare,” Harrelson said. “For the moment it’s just nice to be back in the sweet 16 again and get that first win (at nationals) in 10 years.”