Box Score and Play-by-Play

THIBODAUX - Senior guard/forward Anatoly Bose poured in 31 points, and the Colonel defense forced 26 turnovers as the Nicholls State University men's basketball team picked up a 72-60 win over the University of Mobile in the Colonels' lone exhibition contest of the season.

Nicholls got off to a quick start as the Colonels opened the contest with an 11-3 run.  Nicholls kept the pace of play slow in the first half, grinding down the shot clock on their possessions to work on the fundamentals of the offense while relegating the Rams offense to single-digit point production through the first 12 minutes of the half.  It wasn't until a Mobile three pointer at the 7:22 mark that the Rams crossed the double-digit threshold to make it 15-12 in favor of the Colonels.

After allowing Mobile to pull to within three, the Colonels began to slowly expand their lead, ultimately taking a 31-21 advantage into the half.

Nicholls continued to grind the Rams down in the second half.  The Colonels never led by less than ten the rest of the night as Nicholls eventually increased its lead to 16 when a Bose three-pointer, his fourth and final one of the night, made it 69-53 with 4:55 left in the second.  Bose, who was 4-for-10 from beyond the arc, was joined by senior Kenny Franklin Jr. (2-for-5) and freshman Dantrell Thomas (2-for-2) in connecting on multiple three-point attempts.  As a team, the Colonels combined to shoot 39.1 percent (9-for-23) from three-point range.

Bose turned in 18 of his 31 points in the second half to lead the Nicholls offense.  Junior guard Fred Hunter added ten points with a team-best .444 (4-for-10) shooting percentage from the field.  The Denton, Texas native also added a team-high 10 rebounds to help the Colonel cause.  Defensively, Nicholls was led by junior Ben Martin who tallied four of the Colonels' nine steals on the night.

The Colonels will return to action on Nov. 12 when Nicholls opens the season with a three-game road trip starting with a visit to Houston.  Nicholls will open the home portion of the 2010-11 schedule when the Colonels host Tulane on Nov. 26 in the Green Wave's first trip to Thibodaux since 1991-92