(Photo Credit: Dale Rutemeyer/GoMocs.com) Greg Pryor scored a career-high 24 points in tonight's win over Northern Kentucky

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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.---Greg Pryor and Ronrico White combined for 44 points to lead the Chattanooga Mocs to a 93-81 win over Northern Kentucky in a shootout. Pryor's 24 was a career high as his Mocs shot a season-high 62.8 percent making 27 of 43 shots.

Pryor added four rebounds, four assists and two steals in his 36 minutes of playing time. White tallied 20 with five assists against just one turnover. Casey Jones chipped in 13 points, six rebounds and three blocks.

Tayler Persons and Jalen Billups combined for 46 points off the bench for the Norse, who fall to 4-6. Persons had a career-high 30 including a 14-14 performance at the free throw line.

“They are a really tough cover for us with their style of play,” coach Will Wade shared. “We've been shooting it really well. We've spent a lot of time working on it, and we're shooting it better. That's a credit to our guys with how hard they've worked on it.

“We still have to get better,” he added. “One good thing is we can win a lot of ways. We won a scoring fest tonight. We won a defensive half-court game at The Citadel. We won against a zone team in Robert Morris. You need to be able to do that as a good team.”

It was a see-saw battle early with four ties and eight lead changes in the game's first nine-and-a-half minutes. Anthony Monaco's three-pointer at 7:41 pulled the Norse to within one, 29-28, but the Mocs continued to score.

Martynas Bareika's three at 5:45 marked seven unanswered points for the home team. Two Persons free throws at 3:37 got it back to three, 40-37, but the Mocs responded with a 14-5 spurt to end the half up 54-42.

After a 72.7 percent (16-22) shooting display from the floor in the first half, Chattanooga showed no signs of ending its heat wave to start the second. Jones' basket at 16:05 extended the margin to 19, 62-43. The Norse got it back to 12, but could not get stops.

Eric Robertson canned his second three-pointer of the game with 10:58 left to push the lead to a game-high 21 points, 77-56. It was still 19, 84-65, with 7:09 to go when the Norse made it interesting. Persons capped a 9-0 run with two free throws at 2:24, to cut it to 84-74. White made two free throws a minute later, to slow the Norse, but they kept charging.

Persons sliced the lead to nine three times in the final 1:23, but the Mocs would not break. The win is the third straight for the squad and improves the record to 6-5. All six wins have been by 11 or more points.

The 62.8 percent shooting performance is the best for the program since shooting 66.7 percent in the 2010 Southern Conference Tourney in Charlotte against Georgia Southern. Chattanooga hit a season-high 13 three-pointers and was an amazing 14 of 17 (82.4%) inside the arc.

“Chuck (Ester) was really good,” Wade added. “Duke (Ethridge) was really good. Marty (Bareika) has been great all throughout sitting out, working hard. Duke has been like a new person in practice the last week or so, it's really showing on the court. Chuck's been working harder, he's been better.

“Those guys have been working harder, and it shows in the game.”

NKU shot 49.1 percent from the floor in the loss. It did make all but three free throws shooting 88.9 percent (24-27).

The Mocs are back on the road Friday traveling just up I-24 to Murfreesboro to take on Middle Tennessee. Game time is 8 p.m., Eastern time, and is televised on ASN. Gameday links to audio (Mocs Sports Network), live stats and where to find ASN are available on GoMocs.com. Follow @GoMocsMBB on Twitter for live updates.

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