Photo credit: Kenneth May

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - #6 Colorado School of Mines' NCAA tournament run came to an end in the Elite Eight as #13 Lincoln Memorial's high-powered offense was the difference in a 90-76 national quarterfinal game.

Fourth-seeded Lincoln Memorial (19-3) advances to the national semifinals to play the winner of 1/8 quarterfinal between West Texas A&M and Daemen.

LMU was paced by monster games from Jordan Guest, who scored 28 points with 11 rebounds, and Cameron Henry, who poured in 27 points with four assists and seven boards. Mines never quit in the second half as Brendan Sullivan led four double-digit scorers with 21 points as Ben Boone contributed 17 and Kobi Betts and Michael Glen each had 14. 

The Railsplitters shot an outstanding .540 for the game including 10-of-23 for three and thrived on the transition game, generating nine steals and pushing the pace of the game at every opportunity. Mines rebounded to shoot .531 in the second half after a .378 first half (.449 overall), but ultimately couldn't dig out of the hole created by multiple LMU runs before and after halftime.

"Congratulations to Lincoln Memorial, they're extraordinarly well-coached and they have really good players," said head coach Pryor Orser, who was leading Mines in its eighth consecutive NCAA appearance. "They put so much pressure on you offensively, they're such a good team."

Both teams had good starts to the game as Michael Glen's and-one tied it 13-13 at the under-12 media timeout, but three straight makes by Henry sparked an 11-2 LMU run to take a 24-15 lead, and that grew to as much as 15 points after Guest's layup to end the first half at 45-30.

"We came out slow, and they came out hot," Sullivan said. "We got behind and the second half we did our best to fight back, but we were too far behind."

Sullivan scored Mines' first five points of the second half with a slash to the hoop and a three-point foul, but LMU answered by Devin Whitfield's three and consecutive Julius Brown's layups broke the game open to a 19-point lead. Mines was held scoreless over a 4:22 span, and that allowed the Railsplitters to embark on a 14-0 run to lead 61-35 and all but put the game away.

"I'm really proud of our team, I'm really proud of them being here. It's really, really hard to get here," Orser said. "We made a run there at the end, started making some shots and playing better defense, but it was too little too late."

Mines never quit, though, fighting to the very end as they pared down a 26-point deficit to 14 at the buzzer. A 16-5 run that included five three-pointers showed Mines' relentless attitude.

"This time last year, I was trying to find a park to shoot at. It's been a blessing just to play this year," Sullivan said. "We got 21 games in and that's been unbelievable considering all the circumstances. We're all just super-appreciative of how much we were able to get done and how successful we were able to be."

NOTABLES
- Mines was making its second ever appearance in the Elite Eight and first since 2017. 
- Lincoln Memorial and Mines were meeting for the first time ever. 
- Sullivan scored 17 of his 21 points in the second half to try and pull the Orediggers back into the game. The All-American ends his junior season averaging a team-best 18.1 points per game. 
- Boone continued a terrific NCAA tournament that saw him earn West regional most outstanding player recognition by scoring 17 on 6-of-10 shooting including a career-best 5-of-7 three-point clip. Boone averaged 16.3 points per game in three NCAA tournament contests.
- If this was Michael Glen's final game as an Oredigger, he'll go out in a unique position in program history. Glen is the only Mines player to collect 1200+ points, 700+ rebounds, and 150+ blocks in a career; he finishes with 1,294 points, 757 rebounds, and 159 blocks. His blocks rank second all-time and he is sixth in rebounding.
- In a matchup of offense vs. defense, scoring won out as LMU entered the Elite Eight with NCAA D-II's #5-ranked scoring offense (92.8 ppg) and Mines had the #3 scoring defense (60.5 ppg). LMU's 90 points were the most scored by a Mines opponent this season.
- After scoring 30+ bench points in each of their first two NCAA games, Mines was held to only eight - four from Kai Barr and a basket each by Titus Reed and Trent Dykema - against LMU. 
- Mines did not have an unforced turnover - all nine of their giveaways were steals by the Railsplitters. LMU gave the ball away only seven times.