ST. LOUIS, Mo. – The No. 17 Washington University in St. Louis men's basketball team defeated Central 82-75 in front of a packed house on Friday evening in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Bears are now 20-6 on the year and move on to the Round of 32 tomorrow night at 6:40 p.m. against Franklin.
 
Senior Hayden Doyle led the Bears with 24 points and five assists. Senior Drake Kindsvater netted 15 points, grabbed a team-high seven rebounds and dished out three assists. First-year Connor May scored 14 points with four rebounds and junior Yogi Oliff scored 10 points in 13 minutes of action.
 
The Bears started the game on a 6-0 run, starting with a layup from junior Calvin Kapral. Kindsvater had an offensive putback and Kapral netted another layup for the six-point leave.
 
Central followed with five-straight before junior Will Grudzinski drilled a shot from distance. The Dutch put in another four-straight points, tying the game at 9-9.
 
The Bears hit back-to-back 3-pointers from May and Grudzinski to take a 15-9 lead. Central's Josh Van Gorp, who finished the game with 39 points, scored four in a row for the Dutch, cutting the Bears' lead to two points with 14:13 on the clock.
 
The teams exchanged baskets over the next few minutes with the Bears maintaining a small edge. The Dutch ultimately tied the game at 21 with 8:41 on the clock. After a bucket from Doyle, Central tied it again at 23 and then took a 26-23 lead following a 3-pointer from Grant Uecker at 6:06. The Dutch's Kaleb Brand hit a free throw to put them again 27-23.
 
Doyle hit a jumper at 4:10 to make it a two-point, 27-25 game but Central ended the half on an 8-3 run to go up 35-28 at the halftime break.
 
The Dutch opened the second half with a layup for a nine-point, 37-38 lead. The Bears cut to as few as five points over the next several minutes.
 
Down seven points at the 15:46 mark, Kindsvater scored six-straight points for WashU. For the final basket of his run, Kindsvater slammed one home off a steal from Oliff, cutting the Bears' deficit to just one point, 43-42 at 13:36.
 
Following a free throw from Central, Doyle hit a shot from distance to give WashU its first lead since the first half, 45-44, with 12:49 on the clock. The lead changed three more times in the next minute and the game was tied at 49 apiece on a jumper from Doyle.
 
The game was tied again at 51 apiece with 10:29 remaining. The Bears continued the run with three free throws from May, followed by a steal and a 3-pointer by May, putting WashU ahead 57-51.
 
As the clock ticked down, the Bears continued to hold on to a lead of as many as eight points.
 
Central's Karson Wehde hit a 3-pointer to make it a three-point game with just 30 seconds left on the clock. Following a pair of timeouts, Doyle hit a layup on a long lob from Kindsvater and converted the ensuing free throw after being fouled.
 
With 15 seconds left, sophomore George Gale put in a pair of free throws for an 80-72 game. Wehde hit another 3-pointer for the Dutch to bring to six points with eight seconds left, but the Bears closed it out with a pair of free throws from Oliff.
 
WashU shot from 11-for-33 (33.33%) in the first half but came out to shoot 20-for-28 (71.43%) in the second half. The Bears went 11-11 from the free throw line.
 
The Bears will face Franklin on Saturday at 6:40 p.m. CT. The Grizzlies defeated Denison 67-64 in overtime on Friday evening for the program's first NCAA win since 2000.