Lincoln men's basketball coach John Moseley wasn't quite sure what his team's chemistry would look like heading into Tuesday's home opener against Missouri S&T.
If the 88-51 rout of the Miners at Jason Gym three games into the season is any indication, the Blue Tigers will have plenty of "A" grades in chemistry during the 2017-18 season.
"Our guys did a much better job than they did this weekend," Moseley said. "They are coming out knowing what it was coaches needed them to do."
Lincoln put the game out of reach with a 27-2 run in the final 8:19 of the first half, turning a 3-point lead into a 51-23 blowout at halftime.
"We've done a really good job of sharing the basketball," Moseley said. "How many times have we left the gym with 21 assists on 34 field goals? We took what the defense was giving us."
The duo of John Burton and Amariontez Ivory combined to score 49 points for Lincoln, which shot 55.7 percent from the field and knocked down 12 3-pointers.
Burton had 25 points and Ivory finished with 24. Each made five 3-pointers.
"We have multiple guys who are capable of scoring the basketball," Moseley said. "The big thing for this team is how well we defend and how well we rebound."
Marquise Williams finished two points shy of a double-double and grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds. Lincoln outrebounded Missouri S&T 42-26.
Ivory knocked down a pair of early threes to give Lincoln a 6-2 lead. He reached double digits in scoring less than 10 minutes into the game.
Terrance Smith, who had a quiet 16 points in just 17 minutes due to foul trouble, had a pair of dunks in the first half. His second, an alley oop from Burton, brought the crowd to its feet and extended Lincoln's lead to 24-16.
"He's capable of going for 25 (points) if he gets it going," Moseley said of Smith.
Burton made three straight 3-pointers and scored Lincoln's first 11 points during its run to close the first half. The junior transfer who played sparingly in his two seasons at Rockhurst is already averaging 17.7 points for the Blue Tigers.
"To his credit, he got in the gym and worked really hard," Moseley said. "He's seeing the fruits of those labors right now. It's great to see him experience the success he's experiencing, and we're going to need it."
Sebastian Ferenc's jumper in the lane with 2:20 left in the first half was the only thing preventing Lincoln from scoring 27 unanswered points to finish the half.
Missouri S&T (0-3), which put only seven players on the court Tuesday due to injuries, went to the 3-point shot in the second half. Ervin Sarajlic knocked down four 3-pointers in the second half and finished with a team-high 17 points.
The Miners were able to cut its deficit to 24 points early in the second half, but Ivory hit back-to-back threes to make the score 63-33.
Chris Harris, who scored 22 points for the Miners in an exhibition earlier this month at NCAA Division I Tulsa, was held to nine points on 3-of-19 shooting Tuesday.
The Lincoln crowd had its biggest cheer of the night when Darrius Spencer came off the bench and blocked a runaway layup attempt by Harris with 5:21 to play. Five seconds later, Spencer scored on a breakaway layup of his own to extend Lincoln's lead to 80-47.
"We had multiple guys off our bench get a basket tonight," Moseley said. "It's fun for those guys, they work really hard."
Calvin Chambers and Zack Fields finished with seven and five assists, respectively, for the Blue Tigers.
Lincoln (2-1) plays Langston at 7 p.m. Friday in Kansas City in the "Battle of the LUs" at IL Fieldhouse.
It's been a near-perfect start for the Blue Tigers, who are just a few seconds away from having a 3-0 start this season.
"I'm impressed by the character of the players," Moseley said. " They're new for us and we're new to them, and they're learning to trust us as their coaches. That was a big deal for us to respond like that (after the season-opening loss) and have some momentum going into Kansas City."