St. Louis, Mo. – The No. 16 Washington University in St. Louis men's basketball team rolled past Blackburn College, 96-67, in Tuesday's season opener.
 
Sophomore Drake Kindsvater had a career day with 25 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Bears past Blackburn. Four more players reached double-figures in the win – junior Jake Wolf scored 13 points and grabbed five rebounds, first-year Will Grudzinski netted 12 points, first-year Yogi Oliff scored 11 points and grad student Charlie Jacob finished with 10 points.
 
Despite the lead the Bears eventually built, the game started out even, with Blackburn leading at times. The Beavers led by three points four different times, including an 18-15 lead with 14:32 remaining, before WashU built up a lead.
 
A jumper from Oliff at the 14 minute mark evened things up at 18 apiece. Back-to-back layups from Nate Bloedorn and Kindvater put the Bears up 22-18 with 12:15 on the clock, but it wasn't until a few minutes later WashU started to create some distance.
 
A jumper from Wolf at 8:08 extended WashU's lead to 31-24 and a layup from Kindsvater added two more. The Bears took a double-digit, 36-26 lead with 5:24 remaining the first half on a 3-pointer from sophomore Hayden Doyle, followed by a pair of free throws from Bloedorn.
 
Grudzinski netted a 3-pointer at the 3:53 mark and Jacob netted two free throws to give the Bears a 42-28 edge. Kindsvater and Oliff put in layups before Oliff drained a shot from behind the arc. A 3-pointer from Kindsvater with seven seconds remaining sent the Bears into halftime with a 53-31 lead over the Beavers.
 
Blackburn came out to score the first five points of the second half, cutting WashU's lead to 53-36 and prompting a Bears' timeout.
 
WashU went up 62-38 less than three minutes into the second half following back-to-back 3-pointers from Grudzinski and Kindsvater. The Beavers' Troy Cole, Jr. cut the deficit to under 20 with a 3-pointer at 15:56 but Kindsvater put in a jumper and then stole the ball and laid it in to put the Bears back up by 23 points.
 
The Bears maintained a 15+ point lead for the majority of the game, however the Beavers did close the gap to 14 points with 7:54 left following a 7-0 run. WashU answered with its own 8-0 run behind two 3-pointers in a row from Jacob and a layup from Kindsvater.
 
A layup from Wolf and a jumper from Oliff put WashU up 86-60 with 2:33 left on the clock. The Beavers hit a 3-pointer but Tyler Carlson answered right back with a shot from distance. A layup from Tyler Van Eekeren extended the lead to 91-63 and a pair of free throws from Oliff made it a 30-point game.
 
Senior Liam Dillon closed out WashU's scoring efforts with a 3-pointer with just 12 seconds remaining on the clock.
 
The Bears shot 35-for-71 (49.3%) overall and 12-for-24 (50%) from 3-point range. WashU scored 14 second-chance points, had 16 fast-break points and scored 46 points in the paint. The Bears out rebounded Blackburn 42-31.
 
WashU is back in action on Friday with a road game at Wabash at 7 p.m. ET.