Box Score Kearney, Neb. – Freshman post Ethan Brozek had another double double and senior Max Froehlich tallied a season-high 19 points as the Nebraska-Kearney men's basketball rolled past Chadron State, 86-63, Tuesday night in an RMAC Tournament first round game at the Health & Sports Center.

UNK (16-11) will play Friday at 2:00 p.m. Central against top-seed, and second-ranked, Colorado School of Mines (25-2). The Orediggers beat eight-seed Western State, 90-57, to advance.

The RMAC Shootout will again be played at the Colorado State Fair Events Center in Pueblo, Colo. Go HERE for more info on the tournament.

Chadron, in the RMAC Tournament for the first time in a decade, ends at 13-14 and has an eight-game win streak snapped. The Eagles beat Kearney, 75-73, last Saturday night in the regular season finale at Armstrong Gymnasium but lost a three-way tiebreaker to be the fifth seed in this eight-team tournament.

The Lopers, winning an RMAC tourney game for the first time since 2008, are now 24-13 in this event. That includes a 15-0 mark in first round home games.

The 175th meeting between the Lopers and Eagles saw Chadron lead 2-0, 4-3 and 6-5. Those were the only three leads for the visitors as UNK shot well over 60% from the field for most of the night to lead by as many as 27 points.

Kearney also shut down the Eagles two leading scorers in post Moala Tautuaa (13.2) and wing Kevin McClelland (12.8). Tautuaa didn't attempt a shot in the first half and tallied four points and three rebounds before fouling out late. McClelland went 4 of 12 from the floor to score eight.

UNK hit nine of its first 18 shots to lead 24-11 by the nine minute mark of the first half. The cushion grew to 18, 45-27, by intermission and the Eagles didn't get the deficit under 17 in the second half.

Brozek (Norfolk Catholic) led the Lopers in points (22) and rebounds (12) as he went 9 of 12 from the floor and 4 of 5 at the line. This marks his third double double in the last six games.

On the perimeter, Froehlich (Pierce) had the hot hand early on to have 13 of his 19 by halftime. Going 7 of 10 at the line and 5 of 7 from the field, he also had four assists and three rebounds.

Next, junior wing Jon Henderson (Salt Lake City, Utah) had 14 points, three assists and two steals and junior forward Drew Sankey (Lincoln East) came off the bench to supply five points and five boards in 15 minutes.

UNK ended 28 of 52 (53.8%) from the field and also sunk 25 of 31 free throws (80.6%). The Lopes had a plus 12 rebounding margin, 38-26, and limited Chadron to 38.9% shooting (21 of 54).

Finally, the Eagles were paced by Sammy Hines and Chris Curtis, who each tallied 15 points.