Huskies hold on to 89-85 vs. Basketball Axemen

(HALIFAX, N.S.)—The SMU Huskies opened their 2018-19 season with an 89-85 victory Thursday night over the visiting Acadia Axemen in Atlantic University Sport men's basketball action from the Homburg Centre.

The Huskies, ranked 7^th by U Sports fell behind 18-15 after 10 minutes before exploding for thirty points in the second quarter and led 44-35 at half.

Acadia outscored SMU 22-21 in the third quarter and trimmed SMU's cushion to eight points, 65-57 after thirty minutes.

The final frame saw Acadia score 28 points with Jacques Lukusa (Ottawa, ON) adding nine of his 19 points in the quarter.

SMU managed 24 points with Johneil Johnson (Lake Echo, NS) scoring 11 of his 17 points in the frame as SMU held on for the 89-85 victory.

The Huskies improve to 1-0 on the year while Acadia drops to 0-1 in conference play.

Trevon Grant (Nassau, Bahamas) and Nikita Kasongo (Chateauguay, PQ) each scored 20 points apiece for their respective universities.

Grant added 10 rebounds for a double-double for Acadia while Ben Miller (Winnipeg, MB) chipped in 12 points and Junior Moaku-Matia (Hamilton, ON) had 11.

Nico Brauner (Hattenhain, Germany) had 16 points for SMU and Kemar Alleyne (Scarborough, ON) had 12 points while Kordeiro James (Woodbridge, ON) finished with 11 off the bench.

Both teams return to action against each other November 3^rd at Saint Mary's with an 8 p.m. tip-off.

Dominic Nolasco