WHEELING, W.Va. – The Yellow Jacket men's basketball team knocked off the Wheeling University Cardinals in a Mountain East Conference showdown, 67-64.

The Yellow Jackets improve to 5-4, 2-2 in the MEC. Wheeling falls to 3-6 and 2-3 in the MEC.

The two teams were largely equal on the stat sheet. West Virginia State shot 25-62 (40.3%) from the field, 8-20 (40%) from long range, while Wheeling shot 24-65 from the field (36.9%). Both teams had 41 boards. WVSU committed 12 turnovers, Wheeling had 11. Only WVSU had any blocks. They rejected five Cardinal shots.

Glen Abram was the leading scorer for WVSU with 20 points. Anthony Pittman had 16 points and nine rebounds, and Noah Jordan had 10 points with seven boards.

Both teams started the game cold. Moore was the only Yellow Jacket to go on the scoresheet when he scored on a layup and was fouled. He capitalized on the and-one opportunity. That put the Yellow Jackets up 3-2 with 18 minutes to go. Wheeling scored the next bucket when play was briefly halted to fix a shot clock malfunction. Wheeling then hit another jumper to increase the lead to three. The Yellow Jackets were 1-9 from the field during the stretch.

The shooting woes continued after the first media timeout, although they did make a few additional shots, going 4-9. Moore continued to be the lone scorer for the Jackets until the 12:03 mark when Noah Jordan hit a three-pointer from the right wing to bring WVSU to within 6, 10-16. Moore committed his second foul and head coach Bryan Poore called timeout, displeased with his team's performance to that point. 

Both teams scored four points in the first two minutes following the second media timeout then traded threes with Abram hitting one, and Wheeling's John Korte hitting a step-back to make it 24-17 Cardinals. At the 6:19 mark, Pittman drove the lane then kicked to Abram who was waiting on the right side of the three-point arc and swished it home, then hit a driving layup on a fast break following a Cardinal miss to bring the Wheeling lead to a single possession. Abram then fired a three from the parking lot of the McDonough Center and got knocked to the ground, drawing a foul at the final media timeout of the first half. He missed the shot, but had three shots from the charity stripe waiting on him on the other side of the timeout.

Abram knocked down all three to give the Jackets their first lead since they led 3-2. Wheeling went cold all of a sudden missing four straight. Abram however, started getting hot, drilling a three from 30 feet away. A couple more Wheeling misses and Abram brought it up and fired up a heat-checker, but it fell short off the front of the iron. Noah Jordan was called for an offensive foul and on the ensuing throw-in, Pittman got tagged for a technical foul. Both Wheeling free throws went in to close the Yellow Jacket lead to two. The temperature for the teams swung in the favor of the Cardinals, with Wheeling closing the half on a 10-3 run and the Jackets went into the locker room down 34-31. Abram led the stat sheet with 17, his highest point total since playing Virginia Union in the Chris Paul HBCU Tip-Off.

WVSU came out firing on all cylinders, missing their first two shots, but then hit all six of the following field goal attempts - including one trey - to tie the score up at 44-all. Wheeling called a timeout, but missed the jumper on the ensuing possession. Jordan then came flying down the lane and slammed the ball through the hoop and put the Jackets back on top, 46-44 going into the under-15 timeout.

Jordan extended the lead to five with a three from the top-right of the three point arc to start off a 13-3 run, but the two teams failed to hit a field goal for the next two-plus minutes. With 11:29 to go, Jones hit a layup then Pittman fired up a shot from downtown Wheeling to put the Jackets up 55-47, forcing another timeout from the Cardinals. Jenkins hit another three just before the under-10 timeout to extend the lead to 58-47.

Wheeling closed the lead during the next segment to 62-58 with Jordan and Brown being the only Yellow Jackets to score. The Jackets continued to struggle after the final media timeout, only scoring two points, and only six points over the last eight-plus minutes. Coach Bryan Poore called a timeout with 49.6 seconds remaining and the Jackets holding a slim two-point margin at 64-62. Abram hit a much-needed foul shot with just over 40 seconds to go in regulation to increase the lead to three. Wheeling had a chance to tie it coming down the floor, but lost the handle on it. Pittman took possession of the loose ball and took a timeout. Abram was fouled with 17.4 seconds to go. Abram hit the first foul shot to make it a two possession game. Wheeling took it down, hit a jumper but couldn't foul before the final horn blew.

The Yellow Jacket men will return to the Walker Convocation Center for a 6 pm tilt with West Liberty on Monday, December 13.