SAN ANGELO – The No. 10/9-ranked Angelo State Rams established a new program record with their 23rd win of the season by knocking off Midwestern State 78-59 on Wednesday in a Lone Star Conference game in which they never trailed at the Junell Center.

The Rams (23-2, 10-1 LSC) also improved to 16-0 at home, swept the Mustangs (19-7, 8-4 LSC) in the regular-season series and surpassed the 10-win milestone in conference play for the first time since the 2000-01 season. The 23 wins are a program record which surpasses the 22 wins which was accomplished in the 1983-84, 1987-88, 2000-01 and 2008-09 seasons.

"This is special and humbling because we have so much respect for the players and coaches who came before us in this program," ASU head coach Chris Beard said. "Any time our team can be mentioned among the other great teams that made this program it is humbling and something our guys should take a lot of pride in."

Demario Mayfield led the Rams with 23 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, while Chris Jones went for 13 points, eight rebounds and four assists. Mayfield, who leads the Rams by averaging 16.4 points and 8.2 rebounds per game this season, matched his career-best with the 23 points after going 5-for-5 on 3-pointers. Raijon Kelly added 12 points and three assists, going 4-for-6 from the field including hitting both of his 3-point attempts. Marsell Holden struggled with his shot from beyond the arc at 2 of 8 and finished the game with eight points, while Omari Gudul added 11 points on a night where he went 5-for-5 from the field and Brentine Taylor went for seven points and five rebounds.

"We knew that we were going to have to box out and fight with their big guys inside," Mayfield said. "It was going to take us playing great defense and stringing together stops and I think we did a great job of that in order to pull away from them."

Angelo State earned the win by limiting MSU to 35.0 percent shooting, while the Rams shot 28 of 53 (52.8 percent) from the field. It was the 15th time this season that ASU has held an opponent to below 40 percent and it was the 19th time that the Rams shot over 50 percent. ASU leads the nation with a 53.6 field-goal percentage and is third in the nation with its 38.0 field-goal percentage defense. On Wednesday, ASU stifled the Mustangs from the start and led 23-10 just 12 minutes into action and then doubled-up MSU at 30-14 with a Mayfield jumper. ASU's lead was 37-22 at halftime and it never crept into single digits.   

"Our coaching staff puts together keys to winning a game before every game we play and one of those was to have a good start to tonight's game," ASU head coach Chris Beard said. "We wanted to have a strong start offensively and defensively and I thought our players really bought in and got it done."

ASU leads the conference standings by one game over Tarleton State (10-2 LSC) which was a 64-60 winner over West Texas A&M on Wednesday in Canyon, but is looking up to the Texans in the NCAA Division II South Central rankings which were released on Wednesday. ASU is ranked No. 4 in the region, while the Texans are No. 1 followed by Metro State and Colorado School of Mines. The Rams have three regular-season games remaining on their schedule, starting with a road game on Saturday at Cameron before travelling to play at Texas A&M-Commerce next Wednesday and then hosting Texas A&M-Kingsville in the regular-season finale on Saturday, Feb. 28 at the Junell Center. TSU will finish off its season with home games against Eastern New Mexico and Texas A&M-Commerce.

"You don't start changing who you are at this time of year," Beard said. "We are sticking with our identity to take it one game at a time and prepare for the next game on the schedule like it's the most important game we have."