IRVINE, Calif. – The threes were falling on Thursday night at CU Arena to the delight of the home crowd and everyone wearing Green and Gold.

Facing the frisky Notre Dame de Namur Argonauts, the Concordia University Irvine Eagles improved to 20-8 after securing a 86-68 win with a fantastic shooting performance across the board.

Five different players landed in the scoring column with double figures and the squad shot 51.6 percent from downtown on the evening (16-for-31).

Senior guard Jamel White tied his season-high with 20 points while also adding a career-high 11 assists. Rob McCoy scored 17 points and Kayle Knuckles added 13. Austin Clarke (11 points) and Andre Green (10 points) also helped lead the charge.

White caught fire from behind the arc in the first half and hit his first six three-point attempts.  The Eagles built a 17-point lead by the break and took a 46-29 lead into intermission.

"My guys made sure they found me and I felt confident," said White. "We watched a lot of film and (the Argos) give up a lot of threes."

Knuckles carried the torch in the early part of the second half when he drilled three treys to give CUI another big boost. The Colorado native added seven rebounds, which was second on the team behind Kyle Gray's eight boards.

"Jamel had that incredible first half and Kayle got us off to a good start in the second half shooting the ball and we needed it," said CUI head coach Ken Ammann. "He really puts a lot of pressure on himself to have a good complete floor game and he really did," added Amman. "20 and 11, it's really hard to do better than that as a point guard."

White kept probing the defense as well and setting up his teammates. Clarke and Mike Mellinger also drained multiple three-pointers to keep the Argonauts at bay.

"After the loss to Dominican we were humbled," added White. "We were motivated and made sure we hit our threes tonight. I'm a pass-first type of teammate so I found my teammates and they were open and we made a lot of shots."

It was the first double-double for White in his Concordia career. The Louisiana native also had three steals. In fact, the Eagles came up with 12 steals on the night, with Green leading the way with four and Gray also picking three pockets.

There was a stretch at the end of the first half where the Eagles kept forcing turnovers with their full court press and caused the Argos to call multiple timeouts. That helped CUI gain some separation and along with their high shooting percentage, carried the Eagles to victory.

CUI is trying to secure a top two seed in the upcoming PacWest Conference Tournament which would also give them a first-round bye. The Eagles started the week tied with Point Loma for that second spot behind conference-leading Azusa Pacific, but the Sea Lions currently hold the slight edge with CUI having just three more games on the regular season schedule. CUI already clinched a spot in the PacWest Conference Tournament and enters the weekend in the third seed.

"We went from the highest of highs on Saturday (beating Chaminade) to the lowest of lows (losing to Dominican on Monday) and we put ourselves in a great position and then kind of nullified some of that Monday," added Amman, "so I'm really proud of the guys to really battle back and find a way to win a tough game."

CUI will finish its five-game homestand this Saturday, Feb. 22 at 5 p.m. against Academy of Art. The CUI women's team will play the first part of the PacWest Conference doubleheader starting at 2:30 p.m. against the Argos.

For the full CUI men's basketball schedule, click here.