Wood, Belmont beat SIU-Edwardsville 78-61 in OVC tourney

Updated Mar. 3, 2021 10:35 p.m. ET

Associated Press

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) — JaCobi Wood came off the bench to score 19 points to carry No. 1 seed Belmont to a 78-61 win over Southern Illinois-Edwardsville in the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference Tourney on Wednesday night.

Wood shot 4 for 6 on 3-pointers.

Caleb Hollander had 17 points for Belmont (25-3). Grayson Murphy added 13 points, eight rebounds, seven assists and five steals. Luke Smith had 10 points.

Iziah James had 18 points for the Cougars (9-17). Mike Adewunmi added 16 points, six rebounds and three blocks. Shamar Wright had 10 points. Lamar Wright had a career-high seven blocks plus nine points.

Belmont will play the winner of Thursday's game between No. 4 seed Jacksonville State and fifth-seeded Murray State in the semifinals Friday.

___

For more AP college basketball coverage: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and http://twitter.com/AP_Top25

___

Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com