FORT WORTH, TX - No. 20 Texas Wesleyan Men's Basketball moved back into third place in the conference Thursday night with a 105-97 victory over University of Science and Arts-Oklahoma (12-13, 6-9 SAC) coupled with Southwestern Assemblies of God's (19-4, 11-4 SAC) narrow loss to Mid-America Christian (24-1, 14-1 SAC), 80-79.

The Rams will next travel to MACU Saturday afternoon and will host SAGU in one of the final two home games of the season (Tuesday February 24).

TXWES scored 62 points in the second half, the most in a game since 64 in the first half against Dallas Christian on November 14 earlier this season. The team hit 12-of-17 threes, the second best shooting percentage in program history, only bested by 13-of-18 makes against Wiley during the 2004-05 season. 

Neither team led by double digits in the first half and the Drovers made its strongest push to start the second frame, exchanging the lead with the Rams five times. That's when Texas Wesleyan surged, going on a 8-0 run from 15:13 remaining to 12:59 - expanding its advantage to 15, 68-53. LaMont Simmons scored 10 points in the first five minutes out of the locker room all by himself and finished with 21 points, five rebounds and a block despite getting dinged twice - once in the leg and again on the hand - along the way. He's hit his last four treys after starting the season 6-of-19 from deep. He hit all six of his free throws and is now shooting 78 percent from the charity stripe on the season.

Seven different players scored in double figures for TXWES: Simons and Peyton Sallee poured in 21 points, Davon Berry and Sebastian Karwoski scored 13, Sam Lorenzen and Joe Cook-Green added 11 and Akeem White got to 10, despite his first night shooting less than 50 percent since January 16.

The stellar free throw shooting down the stretch of conference games continues to be one of the biggest differences between the 2019-20 squad and the 2018-19 team that couldn't seem to put opponents away late. Since January 9 in the last five minutes of conference games, the Rams have made 51-of-69 free throws, or 73.9 percent - 5.0 percent better than their season average.

White led all Rams with seven rebounds five different players had three assists and White plus Cook-Green each nabbed three steals - season highs for both. TXWES has won four of its last five.