SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio – Junior Larenz Thurman scored 23 points and shot 80-percent in the first half and redshirt-senior Will Vorhees made conference history in a 100-72 victory over Urbana University, on Saturday afternoon.

Urbana (5-11, 3-9 MEC) found open shooters and knocked down their shots early in the game, leading to a 24-22 advantage with 10:12 to go in the first half. The Blue Knights hit four three pointers in the first ten minutes of the game.

Thurman had tied the game at 22 with 10:36 remaining and then gave NDC (13-5, 9-3 MEC) the lead with another three pointer, about thirty seconds later. After the Falcons took that 25-24 lead at the 10:01-mark, they never trailed Urbana again.

Another three ball by Thurman capped a 16-0 run over four and-a-half minutes and the Falcons led by 14 points, 38-24, with 5:35 to go. Thurman had seven three pointers in the first half and 23 points. Notre Dame led 48-32 at intermission.

"My teammates got me the ball, the open shots were coming and I knew I was going to knock them down," Thurman said. "The last couple days, I was getting up a lot of shots up with Will Vorhees, so it's been helping me out."

The Falcons came out extremely hot in the second half, and in the first ten minutes of the half, they shot 47-percent from the field and went 8-for-8 at the free throw line.

"The second half was good," head coach Tim Koenig said. "I may knit-pick a little with the turnovers, but we played really hard, really well defensively. We've had some really good halves, but that (second half) was a really good half. The first ten minutes of the second half, I thought we really defended well."

The lead ballooned to 30 points, 71-41, for the first time with 11:57 remaining in the game when sophomore Halil Parks made two free throws. They pushed it to 31 points, 77-46, with just under nine minutes remaining when redshirt-junior Drew Scarberry dunked the ball. And the Falcons grabbed a 36-point advantage, 92-56, after junior Daniel Lott sank two free throws with under five minutes to go.

Vorhees secured an offensive rebound at the 8:21-mark in the second half, which gave him nine rebounds and 1,000 for his career. He became the first player in Mountain East Conference history to have 2,000 career points and 1,000 career rebounds. In NDC history, the native of Lima, Ohio is third in points and second in rebounds.

"Will Vorhees is one of a kind. He's just a special player and a leader," Koenig stated. "He's a guy that has great stats but really doesn't care a whole lot about the stats, just does what's best for the team. I couldn't be happier for the guy, who's such a great leader, such a great teammate, such a great person. An unbelievable representation of our program and the face of our program."

"Will's probably the best big man I've ever played with. He's super skilled and can shoot it from anywhere," Thurman mentioned. "If you don't have two guys on him, it's going to be a rough night for you. But when guys double him, I'm open for three and he's willing to pass, 10 out of 10 times. The game just comes easier playing with Will. I've learned to put the hard work in like he puts the work in every day. He's a beast."

Notre Dame would go on to win by 28 points, tied for their largest margin of victory this season, 100-72. Thurman tied his season-high in points with 31 and made eight three pointers, which is a season-high and puts him in a tie for second most in a game, in program history.

"I got a couple wide open threes in transition so after that I knew I would get it going," Thurman said. "Then once we got into our plays, I knew there were spots where I would be open from three so I knew I had to be ready to shoot when the time came. I stayed patient, stuck with our offense and guys were setting me good screens. I was coming off (the screens) and able to dribble, pull up and hit the three."

The Falcons finished the game shooting 55-percent, overall, and shot 47-percent from three point land, both of those marks are second-highest on the season. The team had 37 defensive rebounds and 24 assists, which were both a season-high.

Vorhees finished with 28 points, 11 boards, five assists and two blocks. Parks gave the Falcons 11 points on 57-percent shooting, seven rebounds and three steals. Junior Bruce Hodges III only recorded two points but made his presence felt with 11 rebounds and nine assists. Hodges has had at least one steal in 14 consecutive games and he's had 11 rebounds in back-to-back contests. Scarberry finished with 11 points.

"It makes the game 100-times easier, knowing that I can score but also knowing that I can trust my teammates and they'll hit the open shot," Thurman explained. "It just makes it easier to make the simple pass and not have a second thought, when it comes to making the easy pass. I can just kick it to Drew for a three and nine times out of ten it's going in. Same thing with Will, same thing with Bruce, same thing with HP (Parks). We all can shoot, that's the luxury of having our offense."

"I thought we had really good shot selection, especially in the zone," Koenig said. "We didn't bomb threes, we took good ones and we got the ball inside to Will. How about Bruce Hodges? He had nine assists, no turnovers, 11 rebounds. He impacted the game in a lot of ways."

Malik Jacobs led the Blue Knights with 26 points and six rebounds. Datrey Long added 15 points and led the team with four steals and four assists. Co-MEC Player of the Week, Matt Treacy, did not play for Urbana in the game and that had NDC readjusting a bit.

"Our matchups changed, we expected (Treacy) to start and play big minutes," Koenig said. "He's been playing great, had 33 points against Fairmont State. We changed our matchups a little bit. We talked about the zone a little bit but we moved the ball, got the ball inside out and really used the whole floor and got Larenz open shots and Larenz made shots."

Notre Dame will travel and play West Virginia State University on January 30. The game will begin at 7:30 p.m.