In the team's first trip to North Bay for OUA action, the McMaster men's basketball squad defeated the Nipissing Lakers 83-53 on Saturday night.

Despite the margin of victory it was not one of the best efforts by the Marauders, who actually trailed the first-year team from Nipissing 17-15 at the end of the opening quarter.

The second quarter was played more like Coach Amos Connolly would like to see his team play, as the Marauders threw up a rare shutout by outscoring the Lakers  24-0 in the quarter and taking a 39-17 lead into the intermission.

Coach Connolly was able to go deep into the Marauder bench and all 12 players saw action during the game.

Coming out of the halftime break, McMaster again took its foot off the gas and allowed Nipissing to dictate the play.  The Lakers won the third quarter 24-22, to reduce the Marauder lead to 61-41 after 30 minutes.  For a team that was looking for its first OUA conference win, the Lakers showed no fear of 4th ranked McMaster.

The Marauders picked up their game in the fourth quarter, and behind some spectacular shooting from Trevon McNeil, were able to build the lead back up.  McNeil knocked down five 3-pointers in the final frame, and his performance was one of the bright spots for McMaster on this night.

McNeil and Leon Alexander both scored 15 points to pace the balanced Mac scoring parade.   The top shooter for Nipissing was Jordan Roberts with 14.

McMaster improves to 9 and 3 and is in  first-place in the OUA Central Division.  The Marauders next game is on Saturday, January 24th versus Waterloo and please note the game time has been moved to 8 p.m. It is the annual THINK PINK game in support of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation