Illinois Wesleyan blows past No. 22 Washington University

ST. LOUIS — Harrison Wilmsen returned to his hometown Wednesday to score 17 points in 17 minutes off the bench to spark the Illinois Wesleyan basketball team to a 76-50 nonconference victory over No. 22-ranked Washington University.

“The turkey is going to taste better, I tell you that right now,” IWU coach Ron Rose said. “That’s the kind of vision of our team and how we need to play to be successful.”

The Titans improved to 3-2, while the Bears lost for the first time in five games.

IWU rolled to a 40-19 halftime lead.

“I thought our defense was stifling the first half. We’ve been challenging our guys to utilize our length. We have size and length, and I don’t think we hae played as big as we are," said Rose. "We got our hands on a lot of basketballs the first half. It was just another level of intensity and aggressiveness at that end of the floor.”

The Titans enjoyed a 67-37 bulge after a Luke Yoder 3-pointerwith 7:18 remaining.

Yoder scored 15 points and Nick Roper, another St. Louis native, added 12. Yoder also had four steals, while Ryan Sroka chipped in nine points and a team-high six rebounds.

“Another goal is we wanted to play with a really good pace because of our depth, and I felt like we did that as well," Rose said. "There were a lot of really tangible things we can cling to as a group to understand the potential of this team.”

Wesleyan shot 48.4 percent from the field and connected on 8 of 19 from 3-point range for 42.1 percent.

Washington struggled to 25.5 percent shooting and hit only 5 of 23 from beyond the arc (5 of 23).

Drake Kindsvater and Ryan Cohen scored 11 points each to lead the Bears.

The Titans are home to face the University of Chicago at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday at Shirk Center.

Photos: Illinois Wesleyan defeats Ohio Wesleyan, 84-55, in season opener