RAPID CITY - Hot Springs knew the pressure was coming, but there just wasn't a lot it could do about it.

St. Thomas More turned the Bison over on their first five possessions of the second half to spread a two-point deficit out to 17 by the end of the third quarter on its way to a 56-32 Black Hills Conference boys basketball win at St. Thomas More High School on Thursday.

"They came out in the third quarter with really good pressure," Hot Springs head coach Kim Henningsen said of the Cavaliers. "They picked up the pressure full court and we didn't handle it very well. That was the difference in the ball game. And then we got behind, and we tried too hard. When we try too hard we get in trouble."

The Bison's effort was never in doubt as they were able to outwork More on the boards for much of the night and took a couple of leads in the first half before a Brandon Bassett bucket right before the halftime buzzer made it 22-20.

"You have to give Hot Springs an awful lot of credit," More head coach Dave Hollenbeck said. "They play as hard as anybody, and that's a credit to that coaching staff. They did a good job of beating us on the glass tonight, but our depth just wore them down a little there after halftime."

The Cavaliers (15-1 overall, and 11-0 BHC) came out looking like a different team in the second half, pressuring the ball and pounding it inside to Bassett. The 6-foot-4 sophomore scored 13 of his game-high 17 points in the second half. Fellow sophomore Liam Duffy added 10 points for the Cavaliers and defensive specialist Zach Cimburek added nine.

"It would have been nice to handle that pressure," Henningsen said of the second-half onslaught. "We knew it was coming and we thought maybe we could get through that first four minutes but we just didn't. It's a little disappointing, but they (More) are a good team. They don't make many mistakes and when they do they're aggressive mistakes. They don't make careless mistakes."

Blake McPherson scored 15 points to lead the Bison (4-12, 2-8), but he was the only Hot Springs player to crack double figures. Chris Housley added six points for Hot Springs.

The Bison play Bennett County at home on Saturday before closing the regular season with three games against Region 8A opponents in Red Cloud, Custer and Lead-Deadwood.

"Those are all big games for us," Henningsen said. "That Custer game is always a big game for us, obviously, and it'll be good for us to see Red Cloud before we have to play them in the first round of the district just to get a little idea of what they're going to do. We know that Red Cloud is a very good team, and we want to show Lead that we're a better team than what we showed the last time we played them."

The win was just the beginning of a tough three days for More. The Cavaliers travel to Custer for another BHC battle tonight at 7:30 p.m. before leaving at 7 a.m. on Saturday for Sioux Falls and a game Saturday night against Bellevue East High out of Nebraska at the Elmen Center on the Augustana campus. Bellevue is a Class A team - Nebraska's largest class.