Cayo’s Perfect Outing Paces Spiders

Friday, November 27

Lexington, KY

6:00 PM

University of Richmond

1-0,0-0Atlantic 10

Morehead State

0-2,0-0OVC

Morehead St.

Richmond

11/27/2020 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Nathan Cayo tied a career high with 23 points and made all 10 of his shots from the field to lead the Richmond Spiders to a season-opening 82-64 win over Morehead State at the Bluegrass Showcase Wednesday night at Rupp Arena.

Cayo shouldered the Spiders scoring load early, netting 12 points in the game's first nine minutes including a corner three-pointer after taking zero shots from behind the arc during the entire 2019-20 season.

"My mentality was just to be aggressive," said Cayo. "We have great players on our team so most of the time they're focusing so much on the other players that I'm going to get some wide-open shots, so I'm trying to be aggressive every time I get the ball."

Cayo finished the first half with 14 points as the Spiders edged ahead of the Eagles late in the half, leading by as many as 10 points before Morehead State closed the gap to 47-40 at halftime. Richmond shot 68 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes.

"We played really nicely on offense in the first half," said coach Chris Mooney. "We moved the ball and really took advantage of being a veteran team that has a really good understanding of how we're playing."

In the second half, the Spiders turned up the defensive pressure, forcing 10 turnovers and holding Morehead State to 33 percent shooting from the field while surrendering just 24 points.

"I thought that really was the key to us being able to pull away," said Mooney. "We still played well offensively, but our defensive intensity and our defensive grit really improved."

The Spiders doubled their lead from seven to 14 in the first three minutes after halftime as five points and a steal from Jacob Gilyard keyed a 12-2 run to put Richmond up 59-45 with 16:52 to play. Richmond expanded its lead to 19 with under eight minutes to play before sending much of the starting lineup to the bench down the stretch and coasting to the 18-point win, its biggest margin of victory in a season opener since beating Radford in 2014.

Cayo became just the second Atlantic 10 player to go 10-10 or better from the field in a game in the last 10 years, joining Dayton's Obi Toppin against Western Michigan on December 19, 2018 (11-11).

Grant Golden finished with 16 points, four rebounds, and four assists, moving into 14^th place on Richmond's career scoring list with 1,488 points and ninth place on Richmond's career rebounds list with 669.

Jacob Gilyard scored 13 points with five rebounds, five assists, and three steals while Blake Francis scored 13 while shooting 3-6 from three-point range.

Making the second start of his career, sophomore Tyler Burton led all Spiders with 12 rebounds, a career high, and added seven points.

The Spiders finished the game shooting 56 percent from the field (35-63), their best in a season opener since making 57 percent of their shots in a season-opening win against Citadel in 2010.

Richmond will take on 10^th-ranked Kentucky Sunday at 1 PM on ESPN in the Spiders first matchup with a non-conference top-10 opponent since visiting #9 Kansas in 2012.