Davenport, IA - The Illinois Central College Men's Basketball team (3-4) had not played since Wednesday, November 20th. Entering their Friday night road game against St. Ambrose JV, that math adds up to 16 days between game action for coach Tony Wysinger's crew. While some rust certainly had to be knocked off by way of the holiday break, the Cougars would prevail over the JV Bees, taking a slim margin of a 78-72 victory. 

ICC got out of the gates hot, leading 12-4 within a few minutes' time. Alas, the JV Bees turned around with a run of their own, going on a 13-4 run for a 17-16 lead with 10:30 remaining in the first half. That would be just the start of the first half momentum for St. Ambrose JV. 

The Bees would go ahead as much as 30-20 in the opening half's waning minutes, and come to find out, that 10 points would be the largest margin for St. Ambrose JV, as this one was close throughout. 

A brief run before the halftime break saw the Cougars cut the deficit back under 10 points at 40-32, keeping the game within a manageable range of points despite the JV Bees shooting 52% from the field in the first 20 minutes. 

See-saw affair would be the game's nature out of the locker room, but ICC saw a bit more in their favor, cutting the deficit down to just four points with 10:54 left in the game, drawing a timeout from St. Ambrose JV. 

It would be the 7:21 mark when the Cougars took a 57-54 lead. Now, normally, a three-point lead with such an amount of time left is anything but safe. That being said, ICC would never surrender the lead the rest of the way, even pulling ahead as much as 68-56 with 5:01 to go. 

The JV Bees knocked down a couple shots from distance as the game sputtered out, but the Cougars had gotten the run they needed and would eventually secure that aforementioned six-point win. 

Cold shooting would plague St. Ambrose JV, as hot as they'd started the game, with final statistics reading a 45% with ICC now out-shooting them with zeros on the clock at 47%. 

From this point, the Cougars now begin a Region 24 slate by hosting the Rend Lake Warriors at Ramsey Gym on Saturday, December 7th at 3:00 PM. 

COUGAR STATISTICS
Payton Cook | 27 points, 13 rebounds
Isaiah Payne | 14 points, 5 assists
Jeremiah Tate | 12 points, 1 assist
Shamar Grant | 6 points, 6 rebounds
Rickey Woods III | 4 points, 6 rebounds
Cooper Knoll | 6 points
Michael Womer | 5 points, 3 rebounds
RJ Davitz | 3 points, 1 assist
Cody Marcinko | 3 points, 2 rebounds

NEW LIVE STREAM NOTICE - FROM YOUTUBE TO HUDL TV
Going forward, all home contests for Illinois Central College Athletics inside of Ramsey Gym will be broadcast on "HUDL-TV", and no longer be streamed on the ICC Athletics YouTube Channel, due to a change made by the HUDL team to the live-streaming process. 

Fans can use THIS LINK from here on out to tune into the applicable home contests.