The Eagles opened up their season with two solid wins in Kates Gymnasium during the Holiday Inn Exempt tournament.

But it was an even better weekend for juniors Wendell Davis and Boo Osborne. 

On Friday night’s win against Missouri S&T, 82-73, Davis scored a career-high 34 points on 13-of-16 shooting from the field and 6-of-8 from the free throw line. 

“It was good,” said Davis. “My teammates were able to get me the ball and put me in the right situations to score.  Without them there’s no career high so all thanks to them. But the most important thing is that we won.”

Davis has now scored 825 points in his AU career. 

The teams went into halftime tied at 42. Davis opened up the second half with a layup, followed by a Miners’ jump shot, but sophomore forward Marsalis Hamilton quickly put the Eagles back in the lead. 

“He’s a winner,” said Ellenwood. “We’re excited. Marsalis is going to be a great player for us this year as a sophomore.”

From there, the Eagles maintained the lead with as many as 13 points ahead and held the Miners to a 34.5 shooting percentage from the field in the second half.

“It was a great test for us because they pressed us a ton,” said Ellenwood. “To handle their pressure we had to take care of the ball. 

The Eagles’ offense shot 55.4 percent from the field (31-56). Osborne added to the offensive success with 15 points and seven rebounds and junior guard Adrian Cook collected 12 points and eight rebounds. 

Saturday’s matchup against the No.8-ranked Indianapolis Greyhounds came down to the final two minutes. 

Given two three-point shots down the stretch, Osborne scored eight of this team-high 20 points within 120 seconds, giving the Eagles a 75-67 victory over the Greyhounds.

“It was a great game. They’re a great team,” said Ellenwood. “But it all comes down to big moments. We call him ‘big-shot Boo’ for a reason.”

As the Eagles and Greyhounds battled neck-to-neck in the second half, the Davis and Osborne duo gave the team two incredible moments to celebrate.

Osborne’s first feed from Davis resulted in a 3-pointer, breaking a 65-65 tie with 1:26 left in regulation. With only 28 seconds to go, the duo went for another, giving the Eagles a 71-65 advantage. Osborne then blocked a shot, grabbed the rebound and made two free throws in the final 20 seconds to clench the victory.

“We have that connection,” said Osborne. “He knows when to find me and I know when to find him.”

“Those guys are great friends,” said Ellenwood. “When those moments happen it’s nice because they can share that moment when they beat a good team forever.”

The Eagles finished with 21 rebounds, versus the Greyhounds’ 10, and shot 82.6 percent (19-23) at the free throw line.

 “We won the rebounding war, we got to the free throw line and that’s huge,” said Ellenwood. “And our defense was strong. That’s what you have to do against great teams and our guys stuck to the game plan.”

Davis ended the weekend with 50 points, 15 rebounds and five assists. Osborne and Hamilton both tallied 27 points and 15 rebounds, eight of which were offensive rebounds.

“Overall we had a good weekend,” said Davis. “It was great going against two good teams from another conference. We learned some things that were good at and other things that we can improve on.”

As the Eagles end the weekend on a high note, the team looks forward to what the season will hold for them.

“We’re a little bit better than we were yesterday,” said Ellenwood. “That’s the one thing you can ask for is that we keep getting better as the year goes on.”

“I feel like we can do amazing things if we come together, play our game and do what we’re taught” said Osborne.

The Eagles will officially kick off their 2015-16 season on Friday at 7:30 p.m. against Silver Lake.