TACOMA, Wash. - The Pacific Lutheran University men's basketball team showed no signs of rust after a weekend off, leading wire-to-wire in a 79-65 victory over Northwest Conference nemesis University of Puget Sound on Friday night inside Memorial Fieldhouse.

"I was proud of the way the guys responded to being without their leader," said assistant coach Alex Schilter.

"Coach Chad Murray has done an excellent job building a culture that is player led, and this was a result of that. We played together. We had 19 assists on 30 made field goals, and the guys were motivated to play hard for Coach Murray, but at the end of the night its all about them and how hard they've worked to get here."

Seth Hall and Tyler Ashmore established the tone from the opening top, each draining a three in the opening minute to build an early 6-0 advantage. Another Hall trey swelled the Lute lead to 10 just over five minutes into the contest. PLU's (3-0, 3-0 NWC) lead touched 16 before taking a 39-29 advantage into the halftime intermission.

The Loggers (1-4, 1-4 NWC) whittled the gap to just two points with 11:28 left in the game but a pair of threes from Hall, a Sean McCurdy layup, and a Hall layup pushed the PLU edge back up to 12. PLU ballooned its lead to as many as 20 points en route to the 14-point win.

Hall drained five threes on the day, finishing with a double-double of 25 points and 10 rebounds while also chipping in five assists. Jordan Thomas added 19 points while Ashmore added 12 along with three blocks. Brett Williams hauled in seven rebounds with Luke Worley adding five boards and four helpers.

Friday's night's victory was officially the 100th of Head Coach Chad Murray's coaching career, a stretch that spans stints at both PLU and Cornell College (Iowa).

The Lutes and Loggers meet again tomorrow night at 8 p.m. inside Puget Sound's Memorial Fieldhouse.