EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Senior Marcus Asmus posted a team-high 23 points and a game-high 11 rebounds to lead Augustana to a season-opening 77-73 win over Southern Indiana on Friday night at the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic in Evansville, Indiana.
The Vikings start the season 1-0, while the Screaming Eagles open 0-1.
 
The started quickly, with both teams freely running the floor, but the Vikings dealt the first blow, going on an 8-0 run to take an early 17-7 lead, only to see the Screaming Eagles fire right back with five points to cut the lead to 17-12, drawing a timeout from the Vikings bench with 14 minutes left in the opening half.
 
John Warren drilled a 3-pointer out of the timeout to put extend the lead to 20-12, a lead that would grow to as many as 12 points on an Asmus 3-point play with 11:27 remaining in the half.
 
USI kept chipping away at the lead, cutting it to as few as three points at 32-29 with just under six minutes on the clock, but would get no closer in the opening half, as the Vikings took a 39-32 lead into the locker room at halftime.
 
Southern Indiana came out hot in the second half, opening with a 9-0 run to take a 41-39 lead less than two minutes into the half before Jordan Spencer drilled a pair of shots to give the Vikings the lead back at 43-41, one of seven lead changes and three tie scores before a Warren triple make it four ties, and a Matt Cartwright 3-pointer made it seven lead changes, the last giving the Vikings a 58-55 lead and drawing a timeout from the USI bench with 8:37 remaining.
 
The back-and-forth play continued for the rest of the game, as the second half saw eight ties and 12 lead changes, the final lead change coming on a Jameson Bryan 3-pointer with exactly five minutes left that put the Vikings up 66-64, and even though the Eagles tied it up at 66, Warren sparked a 6-0 AU run with a shot from the win, and the Vikings never trailed again.
 
Asmus, who tallied his second-career double-double went 9 of 15 from the floor overall and 5 of 6 from the foul line to get his 23 points. Both Spencer and Warren finished with 17 points, with Spencer adding a game-high six assists.
 
Alex Stein led the Screaming Eagles with a game-high 26 points, while Marellous Washington scored 21 points in the loss.
 
The Vikings look to make it a 2-0 start on Saturday, when they close the SCB Hall of Fame Classic against Montevallo at 8:30 p.m.
                                                                                                                    
NOTES: Friday's game marked the first-ever meeting with Southern Indiana, the 2,142nd game in program history, and the fifth consecutive season to start on the road … the Vikings improve to 11-4 in season-opening games under head coach Tom Billeter … Both Steven Schaefer and Adam Dykman made their first-career starts in the game, while Marcus Asmus started his third-career game, John Warren his 33rd and Jordan Spencer his 101st