John Brown's long-awaited home debut didn't go as the Golden Eagles hoped.
Texas Wesleyan scored the first 14 points of the game and rolled from there to a 78-48 victory against a short-handed JBU team at Bill George Arena.
JBU was missing three key players in All-American guard Luke Harper, point guard Rokas Grabliauskas and post Nemanja Obradovic because of covid-19 protocols.
The game was the first home athletics event of the school year for John Brown. The Golden Eagles' first three scheduled games were either canceled or postponed because of covid-19 issues. JBU did open its season at Science and Arts of Oklahoma on Tuesday where it lost 91-79.
"Both games we've played we've dug ourselves a hole early," said JBU coach Jason Beschta. "Sometimes it takes some veteran players to start a game, some practice to start a game well. Some of it we're thrusting some guys into the starting lineup that would be backups or might not play. We're going to have to play with that until we can start adding guys back a little bit. But you've got to start games better. You've got to find away to at least get stops if you're not hitting shots."
Vydal Bradford hit two early 3-pointers for Texas Wesleyan and Peyton Sallee also had a trey as the Rams (4-1, 1-1 SAC) rolled out to an early led.
JBU responded with an 8-0 run, including a pair of 3-pointers from Densier Carnes, to get within 14-8.
Texas Wesleyan re-established control with a 12-0 run to take a 26-8 lead.
The Rams led 34-19 at halftime and pushed the lead further in the second half.
"Jason's short-handed right now and he's going to have a really good team," said Texas Wesleyan coach Brennen Shingleton. "And really this whole year is really difficult because it's not a true representation of everybody's team. We're all having to figure out ways to manufacture things on a day-to-day basis because there's so many unknowns."
The Rams hit 29 of 50 (58 percent) from the field, while holding JBU to just 15 of 55.
Bradford led Texas Wesleyan with 20 points, while Sallee had 14 and Christopher Coley 12.
Carnes had 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Golden Eagles.
JBU is back in action Saturday at home against Southwestern Assemblies of God (Texas).
The JBU women's games for Thursday, Saturday and next Monday have all been postponed because of covid-19 protocols.