Gold Rush streak ends in 61-58 loss to Dakota Wesleyan
December 30, 2010

Box score

     MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Brady Wiebe scored 22 points Thursday to lead Dakota Wesleyan to a 61-58 men's basketball victory that ended NAIA No. 9 Xavier University of Louisiana's bid for a perfect season.
     The Tigers (13-4) rallied from a 46-39 deficit in the final nine minutes to end a pair of Gold Rush (13-1) win streaks — including 17 straight in the regular season — and finish as the only 2-0 team in the seven-school Miami Gardens Classic.
     Wiebe's two free throws with 1:58 remaining put Dakota Wesleyan ahead to stay at 57-56. Xavier missed shots on its next two possessions and failed to beat the final buzzer with a 3-point attempt.
     A Chris Iles 3-pointer gave Xavier its final lead, 56-55, with 2:20 remaining.
     Nine XU players scored but none reached double figures. Michael Harvey scored nine points, and Jeremy Lee and Cordell Hadnot had eight apiece.
     Larry Swann scored 10 points for Dakota Wesleyan, an NAIA Division II member for Mitchell, S.D. The Tigers won their fifth in a row.
     Both teams shot 39 percent from the floor, but that was a season low for Xavier, which entered the game shooting 51 percent.
     Wiebe scored 11 first-half points to give the Tigers a 30-23 lead at intermission, then Xavier scored 12 consecutive points to take a 35-32 lead with 13:36 remaining. Kevin Miller's basket with nine minutes remaining extended XU's lead to 46-39, its largest of the game.
     This was the first Xavier team since 1940-41 to start 13-0 and the third in the program's history. The win streak this season was the longest since the 1986-87 Gold Rush won 13 in a row, and the regular-season streak was the longest since a 28-game streak that ended in the second game of 1982-83.
     Xavier will play Concordia (Ala.) at 7:30 p.m. next Thursday at The Barn on the first day of spring-semester classes and attempt to extend an 11-game home win streak.