Columbia, Mo. – Collin Parker scored a career-high 36 points to lead the Columbia College men's basketball team to a 79-70 overtime victory over Bellevue University in the final game of the 2024 Hampton Inn Thanksgiving Classic Wednesday at the Arena of Southwell Complex. 
 
Columbia outscored Bellevue 13-4 in overtime behind seven points from Parker. The game was tied 12 times and had 16 lead changes.
 
Columbia improved to 5-3 with the win, while Bellevue had its four-game win streak snapped and fell to 6-3. Dordt, the top-ranked team in the NAIA Massey Ratings, defeated Hannibal-LaGrange 94-51 in the first game on Wednesday.
 
Seth Larson scored 14 of his 20 points in the second half, while Carson Parker had a season-high 13 points and seven rebounds. Beau Washer added two points, five assists, and a team-high 11 rebounds. Washer moved into 11th place in program history in rebounds (569).
 
Columbia outrebounded Bellevue 44-39 and shot 45.5 percent (30-66) from the field in the win.
 
Parker hit a pair of threes to start the contest as Columbia led 6-2 in the opening 2:12. Bellevue responded with an 8-1 run to take the 9-7 lead. The Cougars went without a field goal for over eight minutes and missed nine-straight shots.
 
Parker canned his third and fourth three of the half to extend the Columbia lead to 19-13 with 8:55 left. The Cougars took their largest lead of the half (34-25) after back-to-back buckets by Larson, but Bellevue scored the final seven points make it 34-32.
 
Parker had 20 points on 6-of-9 shooting as Columbia hit 7-of-8 from the free-throw line and five threes in the first half. The Cougars limited Bellevue to 33.3 percent (11-33) shooting, including 2-of-12 from three-point range.
 
Bellevue gained the 35-34 advantage after a three by Caleb Chiang, extending the Bruin run to 10-0, and took a 40-36 lead with 16:56 to play.
 
Carson Parker connected on back-to-back buckets to get the lead back for Columbia (47-45), and then his three-point play made it 54-53 with 7:38 to play. The game went to overtime tied at 66-66.
 
Chiang scored all of his team-high 12 points in the second half, while Nigel Wilson (12) and Willie Williams (10) also scored in double figures for Bellevue.
 
The Cougars host Missouri Valley College on Saturday, November 30 at 1 p.m.
 
NOTES: Columbia leads the all-time series with Bellevue 4-2 ... The Cougars picked up the 996th win in program history, four shy of 1,000 ... Bellevue entered the game ranked third in the NAIA in points allowed per game (58.3).