The Randolph-Macon men’s basketball team came into Thursday night’s home matchup against Roanoke boasting the nation’s top scoring defense. The Maroons offered little challenge to unseat the No. 9 Yellow Jackets from that ranking as R-MC ran away to its 12th straight victory, with a 90-53 ODAC win.

  Over the course of the season, Randolph-Macon has limited teams to a nation’s best 54.5 points per game. The Jackets held Roanoke to 35.2 percent shooting in the contest. Meanwhile on offense Macon blistered the nets with 54.2 percent shooting in the first half and finished at 51.9 including 43.5 percent from three point range.

  “We came out ready to go today,” said senior guard Jordan Brown. “From the beginning we kept the pressure and that was the main thing, not letting them be comfortable and when we got our defense going we got our offense going. Got out, ran early.”

  As large as the final margin was, R-MC head coach Nathan Davis indicated it could have possibly been worse if the game had not been postponed one day due to weather. “I’d like to say that we weren’t as crisp as we were yesterday,” he said. “We had a great practice yesterday I thought we were ready to go yesterday.”

  Senior forward Brandon Braxton led four Yellow Jackets (17-2, 10-1 ODAC) in double figures. Braxton finished the evening with 17 points, five rebounds, one block and one steal in 20 minutes of play.

  Braxton worked both in the post and stepped outside to hit jumpers on 5-of-9 shooting. “I don’t want to be one dimensional so I worked on shooting over the summer,” he said. “It makes them have to come out.”

  Adam Desgain chipped in 16 points on 5-of-6 shooting including 3-of-4 from three point range. Calvin Croskey scored 13 and Danny Jones 11 with five rebounds.

  The Jackets never trailed and used a business-like approach as they repeatedly shut down every Roanoke (8-9, 4-5) offensive run, limiting the Maroons to one field goal in the first 5:48 of play to pull out to an 11-2 lead
 
  Roanoke had a few short spurts to close the gap but R-MC always found an answer.

  The Maroons closed to within 16-11 midway through the first but Braxton reopened the margin by scoring five of the next seven Jackets points for a 23-14 lead.

  Corey Alexander (12 points) and Logan Singleton (11 points) did their best to keep Roanoke in the game, but the Maroons could not stop R-MC penetration without fouling. For the game Randolph-Macon went to the line 29 times for 24 points, led by Braxton who was 7-for-7.

  With 7:32 to play in the first, Roanoke pulled to within four, 23-19, on pair of Melvin Felix free throws, but from there it was all Jackets as R-MC went on a 21-5 run to finish the half and put the game out of reach.

  After nearly surrendering a 21 point second half lead at Hampden-Sydney the week before, the Jackets made certain that was not going to happen against Roanoke by going about business as usual in the final period.

  “You keep playing the game,” Davis said. “You play the right way, you do the things we do which is pressuring the ball, contesting shots, not letting guys get to the rim. Then offensively you make sure you’re making easy plays, making sure the ball’s getting in the lane, whether it’s post feeds or drives and when they collapse feed it out and be ready to make shots. So nothing really changed.”

  The Jackets tightened the clamps further by going to the boards. R-MC out-rebounded Roanoke by one in the first half. In the second half they wiped the glass clean, out-rebounding the Maroons 26-14. Leading the way was reserve Jamall Powell who in six minutes of play tied Roanoke’s Jack Hamilton with a game high six rebounds.

  Former Hanover standout Dylan Cole also logged six minutes, pulling down four rebounds and scoring five points on 2-of-3 shooting.

  But the play of the game clearly went to freshman Andre Simon. With one minute to play Simon drove in from the left sideline and slammed home a thunderous dunk that brought everyone to their feet and even earned a smile from the normally neutral face of Davis.

  “A pretty good play,” Davis said. “Andre’s been playing great.”

  Braxton agreed. “That was pretty amazing,” he said. “We always tell him to dunk but this time he had a chance. We actually thought he was going to lay it up and he took off so we had to celebrate.”

  “That was great,” Brown said. “Before the game he said he was going to do it.”

  Key to the defensive effort was Brown who came away with a game high four steals, two assists and one block. Brown’s quick hands and feet make him the best man to cover the opponent’s top scorer and at times he appears to be too fast for even the eyes of D-III officials. Over the last few games, Brown has repeatedly been called for fouls that appear to come out of thin air.

  “There’s really nothing I can do about it, I’ve just got to keep on playing my game,” Brown said.

  “He’s been around,” Davis said. “You’re going to get bad calls from time to time. Nobody’s perfect. You’ve got to figure if you’re going to play 30 minutes- 25-minutes a night like he’s going to get, just by playing hard you’re going to get at least one foul. You’re going to get a bad call, that’s going to be two. Now if you commit a dumb foul you’re in foul trouble. So he’s just got to make sure he doesn’t commit silly fouls.”

  Another Jacket that has performed solid work in the shadows of late is senior Kevin Voelkel. Though he did not fill up the scoring column, Voelkel turned in a yeoman performance with four assists, five rebounds and no turnovers in 16 minutes of play.

  “Kevin’s a very integral part of this team,” Davis said. “If Jordan Brown’s our best defender he’s second…He makes good decisions with the ball. He’s somebody you can count on to defend, rebound the ball and make good decisions on offense so you can always count on him on the floor.”

This week R-MC travels to Christopher Newport for a non-conference matchup on Tuesday then returns home to face Washington & Lee in an ODAC contest on Sat. Feb. 5 at 2 p.m.