Yellow Horn leads Trojans past Broncos

CALGARY, ALTA., (Nov. 9, 2019) - Tyis Yellow Horn hopes Saturday's performance is the thing that gets him going.

The 6-foot-4 shooter connected six times from behind the three-point line and scored a team high 20 points, as his Trojans men's basketball team beat up on the visiting Olds College Broncos 83-51 in their Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) game played inside the friendly confines of SAIT's Campus Centre.

"I definitely shot the ball better today, felt more in rhythm," said Yellow Horn, a third-year Business Administration student from Strathmore, Alta. "It was just one of those games where my shot was feeling nice so I kept on letting them go."

Yellow Horn's Trojans move to 5-0 on the season, while the Broncos stay winless at 0-4.

The game started slowly for the Trojans, who managed to find several ways to miss easy layups and high percentage shots. After scoring 42 points in the opening quarter of their 86-66 win over Medicine Hat College on Friday, SAIT finished the first quarter on Saturday leading the Broncos 19-15.

"We couldn't hit anything, and it's really hard to get into the game when you can't hit anything," said Trojans head coach Marty Birky. "Olds did a good job of making us shoot from the outside, or contested well when we went inside. Tyis really opened it up for us."

They extended their lead to 39-29 at the half before exploding in the third quarter for 28 points. On the opposite end of the floor, they held Olds to just nine points.

Yellow Horn hit a pair of threes early on in the quarter to get his team going. Once the Trojans started hitting shots from the outside, Olds College seemed to deflate.

"Throwing different looks at a team is important," he said. "When we're struggling to hit shots, as a player you definitely want to pick up your team and do whatever it takes to get the win. I'm glad that happened today."

The Yellow Horn name has not been heard around SAIT in some time, but it's one with some history. Both his parents played basketball for the Trojans back in the 90's, with his dad (Shay) being named SAIT's Male Athlete of the Year in 1996 after leading the Trojans to a silver medal at the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) National Championship.

"Tyis shoots it well, but he does a lot of little things well - defensively, off the ball, grabbing rebounds," Birky said. "And then he hits big shots."

Charlie Conner (3rd year, Lacey, Wash., Business Administration) chipped in with a solid 17 point, 10 rebound and seven assist performance.

Muktar Mohamed led the Broncos with 22 points.

SAIT will play just once next weekend when they host the Briercrest College Clippers on Friday night at 7pm.