Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Joey Wise (4) drives to the basket past Mankato East’s Lucas Gustafson (3, left) and Briggs Meyer (24, right) in the first half of a nonconference boys basketball game Monday night at New Ulm High School.

NEW ULM — Depending on who is asked, Mankato East is one of the top two boys basketball teams in Class 3A.

Monday night against the New Ulm Eagles, the Cougars showed why.

East hit the century mark as it downed New Ulm 100-45 in a nonconference game.

Ganden Gosch led the Cougars, now 11-1, with 27 points.

Joey Wise led New Ulm, now 2-10, with 11 points.

“East is one of the best teams in the state and we along with pretty much everyone who is on their schedule this year got to see why,” New Ulm coach Matt Dennis said. “They have no weak links — they have shooting, speed, size and are well-coached. They run their very well.”

Dennis said that coming into their game with their Big Nine opponent that he wanted to see his team compete.

“And in the first half we were able to do that,” he said. “But when we got down big a halftime (59-21) humanity kicks in and it is hard to motivate people who know that the game is essentially decided at that point.”

The Eagles, who get back into Big South Conference play when they host Marshall on Thursday, got as close as 21-14 on two free throws from Nick Risen at the nine-minute mark.

But a 38-7 run to close out the first half saw the No. 3-ranked Class AAA Cougars in cruise control.

It was a half that saw the Eagles turn the ball over 24 times.

East added a 21-6 run to start the second half for an 80-27 lead.

“I was pleased when it was 21-14 at one point,” Dennis said. “I thought that we were competing, we were scrapping and helping each other out and doing a lot of the things that we need as essentials. But when you get down 20 and 30 points the old cliché is the wheels fell off. That is what we saw with us tonight.”

Dennis said that Marshall is also a good team.

“We battled with them hard there on opening night (an 81-58 loss to the Tigers),” he said. “But they have grown since then and we have grown since then, so it will be nice being on our home court.”