After scoring game's first 18 points, Air Force cruises to win

Through the first seven minutes of Sunday’s game, Air Force was just about perfect.

Air Force led Florida A&M 18-0 to start Sunday’s game at Clune Arena. Florida A&M missed its first 12 shots, including all six from behind the 3-point line. The Falcons won 81-48, the largest margin of victory since beating Prairie View A&M 75-41 last season, to improve to 9-4.

They open Mountain West play against Utah on Wednesday.

The Falcons’ defense was sharp in the great start, forcing a lot of misses. Florida A&M also missed a few layups right under the basket that could have finally gotten the Rattlers on the board, but the Falcons were impressive.

“If we can start like that, I think we’ll win a lot of games,” center Taylor Broekhuis said with a laugh.

The Rattlers’ first basket didn’t slow down Air Force. The Falcons held Florida A&M scoreless for about four minutes after allowing one basket, and built their lead to 27-2. Florida A&M’s second field goal came with 8:43 left in the first half.

In the first half, Florida A&M hit just 5-of-32 shots, and 1-of-12 3-pointers. Air Force was 14-of-27 from the field and hit 5-of-9 3-point attempts. At halftime, the score was 40-12. That was the fewest points allowed by Air Force in a half since Dec. 28, 2008.

Coach Jeff Reynolds credited the team’s defensive pressure. “In the first half, it was as good as we’ve had all year,” Reynolds said.

Air Force has played well before halftime in other games this year, only to let the opponent back in the game. Florida A&M hit a few more shots after halftime, but Air Force won the second half 41-36. The Falcons were able to empty the bench and get everyone playing time.

“If we have the lead, we gradually want to keep chipping away and make it larger and larger and larger — we don’t want to let them back in,” forward Tom Fow said. “That was a problem in a couple other games. Today we showed we can push a lead out and keep it.”