JACKSON, Miss. -- The Millsaps College men's basketball team played their final home game before campus closes for the holidays on Tuesday. The Majors had a rematch with the Gents of Centenary College, a team they had just beaten in overtime 10 days ago at the SAA/SCAC Challenge.

Overtime would not be needed in the game tonight. The Majors fell behind early, but rallied to take a 30-27 lead at halftime. Millsaps outscored Centenary 40-28 in the final twenty minutes to pick up their sixth win of the season, 70-55. 

How It Happened
Centenary came out and turned up their defensive pressure and intensity from the get-go. The Gents got out to an 8-2 lead early, and it was almost 10 minutes in before the Majors's offense was able to crack double-digits. 

Millsaps started to get things going when Saxton Becker drilled a pair of three-pointers on consecutive possessions to cut the Gents lead down to 15-10. A few possessions later the Majors tied things up at 15-15 on a layup by Becker. 

Centenary answered with a 6-0 run, but the Majors responded and began to take control of the game late in the 1st half. Millsaps closed the half on a 15-6 run to take a 30-27 lead to the locker room. Matt Owens contributed 5 of the points in that run to help give the Majors the lead. 

Millsaps opened up the second half by scoring 9 unanswered points to go up 39-27, and it looked the Majors would be able to put Centenary away. 

The Gents would not go quietly however, as they were able to fight back and get the lead down to two possessions at 54-50 with just over 9 minutes left to play. That was as close as Centenary would get for the remainder of the game.

With the scoreboard showing 54-50, it was Owens again who came up big for the Majors with an old fashioned three-point play off of the assist of Michael Sullivan to put the Majors up 57-50. A couple of possessions later, Cameron Carvelli hit a turnaround jump shot to push the Millsaps lead out to double-digits again.

As has been the story for the majority of the season so far, Millsaps was able to ice their win from the free throw line. Carvelli, Newlon Gillihan and Ryan McLaurin combined to go 5-5 from the line down the stretch to help close out the 70-55 win. 

Key Contributors
Owens finished as the game's high-scorer with 14 points. Gillihan and Becker each added 10 points each, while Joshua Miller and Justin Van Pelt tied for team-high 7 rebounds.

The Majors out-rebounded Centenary by a 52-30 mark, and their defense held the Gents to just 28.6% shooting from the field.  

What's Next? 
Millsaps now sits at 6-0 overall this season. Next up, the Majors travel to Texas this weekend for a pair of non-conference games, both of which will be rematches for Millsaps. The Majors play Austin College at 8:00pm on Friday and close out their road trip with a game at the University of Dallas on Saturday at 7:30pm.