LEXINGTON, Va. - Freshman forward Reggie Williams scored 14 points in his college debut and junior guard Levar Joseph added 13 points as VMI romped to a 71-33 season opening win over neighboring Southern Virginia University Monday night at Cameron Hall.

VMI never trailed in the contest and built a 15-1 lead at the 13:33 mark when Joseph hit a three-pointer. The lead grew to as much as 26 points twice in the first half, the later coming when junior center Tadas Mankevicius hit a put back jumper with 1:41 left before halftime to put VMI up 34-8. The Keydets generated 16 points off of 11 SVU first half turnovers and led 36-14 at the break.

The Keydet margin grew over 30 points at the 12:30 mark of the second half when Jack Castleberry drained a bank shot from the right wing to push the lead to 48-17. VMI led by as many 40 points late in the game and the Knights could not trim the deficit to any closer than 29 points over the last 10 minutes of regulation.

VMI shot 44.6% for the game including 50% (15-30) in the second half. The Keydets out rebounded the Knights, 52-31 for the game.

Williams, a heralded product out of Prince George (Va.) High School, hit 5-10 shots from the floor, grabbed seven rebounds, and dished out a team-high six assists. Mankevicius missed his first career double-double when he pulled down a career-high 10 rebounds to go with his nine points.

SVU (3-4) failed to have a double figures scorer and was led by Baily Beckstead with eight points and seven rebounds. The Knights connected on just 12 of 57 shots including 1-17 from three-point range.

VMI (1-0) travels to Annapolis, Md. Sunday to face Navy at 2 p.m. Airtime on the VMI Radio Network will be 1:45 p.m.

HEAD COACH BART BELLAIRS - "I was proud of our team effort. I thought we passed the ball extremely well. We got into some ruts when we didn't see each other. But we have some guys who can score with the basketball and they were very unselfish tonight. We had 14 turnovers and I wanted to keep that number to 10, but we got the first one under way and I'm excited about the good start.I thought our 2-3 zone was effective. We didn't shoot the three like I thought we would, but we had good looks. What I was proud about was that we took only one rushed three. I felt we had a good balance of inside-outside attack."