After seeing their four-game winning streak come to a close with a loss on Saturday, the Dominican University men's basketball team bounced back with their second wire-to-wire win over the Aurora University Spartans on the season, topping the Spartans 77-62 on Wednesday night at the Igini Sports Forum.  With the win, the Stars run their record to 8-6 on the season and 4-5 in Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) play with a trip to Rockford University on deck for the Stars on Saturday.  Tipoff against the Regents is slated for 2:00 p.m. at Rockford's Seaver Center.
 
"We had a great crowd tonight," commented Mark White, the Stars' head men's basketball coach. "The team definitely fed off their energy and enthusiasm—especially on the defensive end of the floor."
 
The Stars limited the Spartans to just 35-percent shooting from the field, 22-for-62, including just 4-for-20 from three-point distance.  On the other end of the floor, Dominican managed to convert at a 46-percent clip, 29-for-63, while going 7-for-21 from three.
 
Jackson Smith paced all scorers with a game-high 22 points on 7-for-13 shooting.  The Stars' junior is averaging 21.5 points per game over Dominican's last eight contests dating back to December 11.  During that stretch, Smith is shooting better than 52-percent from the field and 44-percent from three while the Stars have gone 6-2.
 
On Wednesday night, Dennis Handy and Braquan Echols scored the first ten points for Dominican as the Stars jumped out to a 10-4 lead over the game's first 4:30.  The Stars continued to add to their lead, extending the advantage to double-digits, 19-9, on back-to-back layups by Dylan Anderson with 13:09 to play in the opening half.
 
Dominican played much of the next eleven minutes with a double-digit lead before a late 10-5 run for the Spartans to close the half cut the lead down to seven, 44-37, at the break.
 
Handy scored the first bucket of the second half, a three, quickly pushing the lead back to ten and the Stars never looked back.
 
Limiting the Spartans to just eight second-half field goals while shooting near 45-percent from the field on the offensive end, Dominican led by as many as 20 in the second half en route to the 15-point victory.
 
Handy and Tyler Guest joined Smith in double-figures with 16 and 15 respectively for Dominican.  Handy was an efficient 6-for-9 from the field, 2-for-3 from three, in 27 minutes of floor time while Guest notched his fifth double-double of the season, pulling down a game-high 13 rebounds.
 
For Aurora, Bailey Vance led the way with 16 points in the losing effort. Michael Finley added ten points in 19 minutes.