EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Redshirt-senior guard Luquon Choice (Laurens, S.C.) scored a game-high 28 points as the No. 2 nationally-ranked Railsplitters (3-0) dominated the second half to capture an 88-72 win over the Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers (2-1) on Friday evening at the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind. Friday night's contest was the first of two games for Lincoln Memorial in the inaugural Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic.
 
After a sluggish first half of action, Lincoln Memorial found itself trailing 35-33. However, the Railsplitters used a couple of second-half runs to outscore the Panthers by 18 points over the final 20 minutes and improve to 3-0 for the seventh time over the past eight seasons.
 
"It was rocky early," said LMU head men's basketball coach Josh Schertz. "They came out and really trapped and pressed a lot more than they had in their first two games. They really scrambled the game up. I thought we looked slow and had trouble getting to spots.
 
"We simplified things at halftime in terms of what we were doing against the press. We were able to attack it better and that got them out of the press. That got the game into a man-on-man deal where we were able to get the game more to our liking from a tempo standpoint."
 
The Railsplitters were particularly dominant over the game's final 15 minutes. After Kentucky Wesleyan established its largest lead of the game at 49-42 at the 15:16 mark, Lincoln Memorial outscored the Panthers 46-23 and made 16 of its last 21 field-goal attempts.
 
"Our energy changed, we got better on the backboards and stopped turning the ball over so much," Schertz said of his team's second-half surge. "We moved it better and shot selection was better."
 
Choice powered the Railsplitters offensively and defensively. Over 40 minutes of action, the Laurens, S.C. native and preseason All-American tallied a game-high 28 points on 10-of-15 shooting, including an 8-for-12 mark from three-point range. With 13:45 to go in regulation, Choice canned his fifth three-pointer of the game and the 298th of his career, breaking the program's career record for threes that was previously held by Nick Sanford (1986-90). In addition to his offensive exploits, Choice held Kentucky Wesleyan's leading scorer Ken-Jah Bosley to 11 points on 4-for-16 shooting.
 
"There's not a guy in the country that I'd trade Luquon for because what he does defensively and what he can do offensively. There's nobody like him in Division II basketball," Schertz said of the senior guard. "I thought he was awesome tonight and what he did on both ends of the floor was huge."
 
Along with Choice, Trevon Shaw (St. Helena Island, S.C.) scored 18 points - all in the first half - on 7-of-14 shooting and a 4-for-8 mark from three. Emanuel Terry (Enterprise, Ala.) notched his second double-double of the season with 10 points, 15 rebounds, five assists and three blocks, while Dorian Pinson (Greenville, S.C.) had nine points, eight rebounds and five assists over 31 minutes of work. Chris Perry (Bartow, Fla.) contributed 10 points, five rebounds and four blocks in just 15 minutes off the bench. Cornelius Taylor (Claxton, Ga.) also chipped in nine points.
 
The Railsplitters shot 56.9 percent from the field and 54.5 percent from three-point range in the contest. Those numbers were inflated by a gaudy clip in the second half, as Lincoln Memorial converted 20 of its 31 second-half shot attempts for a 64.5 percent mark.
 
Kentucky Wesleyan shot 37.5 percent (24-for-64) in the game and made just two of its 10 three-point tries for a 20 percent mark.
 
Jordan Jacks led the Panthers with 17 points and 10 rebounds, while Charles Foster had 12 points. Along with Bosley's 11 points and seven boards, Adam Stanford produced 10 points and five rebounds and Michael Vigilance had 12 points and seven boards.
 
The turning point of the game came early in the second half. After a pair of free throws by Stanford put the Panthers up 49-42 with just over 15 minutes to go, the Railsplitters spun off a 21-2 run and took a 63-51 lead on a basket by Taylor at the 9:51 mark. That run was broken up only by a Jacks layup with 13:26 left on the clock.
 
The Panthers answered back, though, and whittled Lincoln Memorial's lead all the way down to 65-62 following a pair of free throws by Jacks at the 5:49 mark. The Railsplitters' lead held at three (69-66) after another bucket by Jacks with 4:11 remaining, but Lincoln Memorial scored 12 unanswered points to bulge the lead to 81-66 on a three-point play by Perry with 1:51 left. That was ultimately the difference, as the Railsplitters never led by less than 13 points the rest of the way.
 
Lincoln Memorial is back in action on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. when the Railsplitters face the No. 5 Alabama-Huntsville Chargers inside the Ford Center. That game will be streamed on ESPN3, while live stats will also be available at www.LMURailsplitters.com.
 
Quick Hits
-Shaw and Choice combined for 29 of LMU's 33 points in the first half. Shaw connected on 7-of-11 shots in the first half to score all 18 of his points in the first frame. That pair was 11-for-18 in the half while the rest of the team was just 2-for-9.
-Turnovers were still an issue for the Railsplitters. Lincoln Memorial finished with 21 turnovers in the contest, but 13 of those came in the first half. Despite that, the Railsplitters finished with 25 points off turnovers while the Panthers had just 17.
-Rebounds were dead even at 37-37. Kentucky Wesleyan scored 15 second-chance points off of 16 offensive boards.
-Lincoln Memorial assisted on 20 of its 33 made field goals while KWC had just nine assists on 24 baskets.
-Friday marked LMU's first-ever win over Kentucky Wesleyan, snapping a six-game losing streak against the Panthers. It was the Railsplitters' first game against the Panthers since the 1999 season.