MARSHALL, Texas – For the third time in as many games, the No. 22-ranked East Texas Baptist University men's basketball team played at home and won, this time against Louisiana College, 78-68, on Thursday night at Ornelas Gymnasium. With its third-straight victory, ETBU moves to 6-1 overall and 2-0 in American Southwest Conference competition as Louisiana College goes to 2-6 and 0-2 in ASC games.

Bret Atkins scored a career-high 27 points for ETBU shooting seven-of-10 from the floor, including four-of-four from 3-point range, and converted nine-of-10 free throws. Atkins' performance surpassed teammate Jamil Samuel's 26-point game on Nov. 27 as the highest single-game scoring output by an ETBU player this season.

"It was a real tough game, not a very pretty game, but thankfully we had a lot of people step up and make shots," Atkins said. "I think the fact that we shot pretty well was the difference in the game."

As a team, ETBU shot 53.2 percent from the field (25-of-47), establishing yet another single-game best as it topped the previous mark of 51.7 percent against McMurry (Texas) University. ETBU also converted 22 free throws.

Samuel totaled 10 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks. This marked his second double-double this season and his first since a 19-point, 14-rebound game at Rhodes (Tenn.) College back on Nov. 14 in ETBU's season opener. Coming off the bench, Jordan Quillian contributed a career-high 15 points to go along with five rebounds and two assists. He hit five-of-seven shots and converted another five three throws.

"We knew it was going be a physical game 'cause Coach had been preaching it in practice all week long, and they had it out for us," Quillian said. "It's the biggest rivalry we have in Conference. The ASC is a tough conference, but Coach just told us to compete and bring energy so that's what we tried to do."

Junior Mitchell added 12 points, two rebounds, five assists and five steals.

Louisiana College shot 41.4 percent from the floor (29-of-70). The team did not convert a single 3-point shot, missing all 11 of its attempts from behind the arc. Louisiana College finished with a 36-to-33 rebounding advantage, including 23 offensive rebounds. Anthony Gaines, Jr. had 19 points and seven rebounds while Raheem Regis matched Gaines, Jr. with 19 points.

In the opening half, ETBU bolted out to a 13-3 edge less than five minutes into the game. In this spurt, four different players scored for ETBU, including five points by Atkins, as the team converted five-of-eight shots from the field. By comparison, Louisiana College hit one-of-nine shots from the floor during this same stretch, and Evans scored all three points.

With the score later 13-7, ETBU scooted ahead by a 27-9 margin following a 14-2 run with over eight minutes until the half. Louisiana College would, however, manage to put a dent into ETBU's lead, narrowing its deficit to eight points at halftime, 36-28. In the opening half, ETBU shot 52.0 percent from the field (13-of-25), while Louisiana College converted 12-of-32 shots from the floor for a 37.5 percent success rate.

During the second half, Louisiana College drew within four points of ETBU after a successful three-point play by Regis at the 12:13 mark made it a 51-47 game. But Louisiana College would come no closer than that as ETBU claimed the 78-68 victory.

ETBU is in action at home yet again on Saturday, hosting Rust (Miss.) College for a 3 p.m. game.