OMAHA, Neb. -- Led by career-high scoring efforts from Zach Jackson and Ayo Akinwole, the Omaha men's basketball team cruised to an 89-65 victory over Montana State Saturday afternoon at Baxter Arena. The win pushes the Mavericks to 3-3 on the season, while the Bobcats drop to 1-6.
 
Leaders for Omaha
Jackson tallied a career-high 33 points on 10-of-14 shooting with a career-best six 3-pointers and a 7-of-7 showing at the free throw line. The senior added four rebounds, three assists, a steal and a block.
 
Akinwole, making his first start of the season, had a perfect shooting day, finishing 8-of-8 from the field, including 4-of-4 from deep for a career-high 20 points. He chipped in four boards, a season-high six assists and a career-high-tying three steals.
 
JT Gibson hit another four 3-pointers en route to 14 points, and Wanjang Tut also finished in double figures with 12 points on 6-of-10 shooting with a game-high eight rebounds and three assists.
 
Leaders for Montana State
Tyler Hall scored a team-leading 20 points, and Harald Frey added another 16. Sam Neumann had 10 points and a team-best seven boards.
 
Team Stats
Omaha shot a season-high .579 (33-of-57) and knocked down season-best 14 triples as a team, while MSU came in .421 (24-of-57) from the field with seven threes.
 
Inside the First Half
The Mavericks shot .571 (16-of-28) in the opening half, led by 16 points from Jackson and 13 from Akinwole, who was 5-of-5 in the first 20 minutes and also dished out four assists. Omaha grabbed the lead at 12-11 on a Gibson 3-pointer four minutes in to spark a 13-2 run and never looked back, later building an advantage of 44-30 on back-to-back Jackson threes late in the half. Omaha led 46-32 at the intermission.
 
Inside the Second Half
A 13-0 run from 5:18 to 2:41 spotted the Mavericks their largest lead of 29. Jackson poured in 17 points with four 3-pointers in the second half, and Omaha took the win by a tally of 89-65.
 
Noting Today's Game
-Omaha has had two scorers with at least 20 points in each of the last two games.
-Jackson's scoring effort marks the Mavericks' first 30-point performance since Marcus Tyus had 30 at Denver on Feb. 22, 2017.
-Today marks Omaha's second game with .500 or better shooting as a team this season.
 
Up Next
Omaha returns to action Monday, Nov. 26 at Iowa State, with tipoff set for 7 p.m. at Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa. Gary Sharp will have the radio call on 1180 Zone 2, and links to live video, audio and stats will be available on OMavs.com.