MILLIGAN COLLEGE, Tenn. (Feb. 21, 2015) â€" Chris Ellis, Morgan McLeod, Mickey Woods and Mike Woods Jr. gave the Milligan College men's basketball team a fitting finish to this season and their careers at Steve Lacy Fieldhouse, combining for 63 points in a 91-59 rout of Montreat College Saturday evening.
 
Milligan finished its regular season with a record of 18-9 (12-6 AAC) and will enter next week's Appalachian Athletic Conference tournament as the two or three seed, depending on the result of the Truett-McConnell/Bryan game scheduled for Sunday evening. Milligan will secure the two seed with a Bryan win and the three seed with a Truett win.
 
Woods led all scorers with 28 points, including 20 points in the second half. It marked the sixth time in the last seven games the Port Arthur, Texas, native reached 20 points. Woods added five rebounds, four assists and two steals.
 
Woods Jr. scored a career high 19 points alongside a game high four steals. Three of his points came on a triple early in the second half that completed a 10-2 run Milligan used to open the second half. It built the lead up to 17 and from there, the Buffaloes never saw their advantage drop below 14.
 
Woods and Woods Jr. together were 7-of-11 from 3-point territory, Mickey hitting 4-of-7 and Mike hitting 3-of-4. Woods Jr.'s missed 3-pointer was his only miss from the field in the game as he finished 7-of-8 from the floor.
 
"Mickey is super competitive. He's our leader," Head Coach Bill Robinson said after the game. "To be able to put the whole offense in his hands is what we do. Mike Woods gives us the glue. He does all the little things and a lot of things that don't show up in a box score."
 
McLeod and Ellis shared the workload underneath the basket, scoring 10 and six points, respectively, while combining for 10 rebounds and two blocked shots. Ellis scored one of his buckets on a putback dunk that gave the Buffs a 31-point lead late in the second half.
 
"Chris gives us athleticism and a rebounding presence we haven't had, plus shot blocking inside," Robinson said. "Morgan has just become a consistent post player for us to be able to get consistent points every night, and rebounding. He did a great job on the glass again tonight. We're going to miss all of them an awful lot."
 
Kurt Brooks and Julian Bailey scored 10 points apiece. While the Buffs put five players in double figures, Josh Foster was the only Cavalier to reach 10 points. He scored 21 off the bench. Seven others entered the scoring column for Montreat (7-18, 5-13 AAC) but none scored more than eight.
 
Milligan shot 54 percent (32-59) from the field in the victory but really turned it up in the second half, connecting 21 makes on 30 attempts for a 70 percent field goal percentage over the last 20 minutes. The Buffs made 6-of-12 from three in the second half. They scored 58 points in the second half, the most of any half of basketball for Milligan this season.
 
"I can't be happier with the way we finished," Robinson said. "The first half was kind of average, but we really played well in the second half. We shot 70 percent from the field in the second half. That was really the difference."
 
Depending on the outcome of Truett-McConnell's game against Bryan on Sunday, Milligan will play Thursday, Feb. 26, in either the 7:30 p.m. or 9:15 p.m. time slot of the quarterfinal stage of next week's conference tournament.
 
With a Truett-McConnell win, the Buffs would play at 9:15 p.m. against Bryan College. With a Bryan win over TMC in their regular season finale, Milligan would play at 7:30 p.m. against the winner of Bluefield College/Point University in Wednesday's opening round. The full bracket will be released by the AAC once all regular season games have been played.