First round:
(8) Detroit 73, (9) Wisconsin-Milwaukee 65
Quarterfinals
(6) Illinois-Chicago vs. (3) Youngstown St.
The key early? Offensive rebounding. We got three in the first four minutes and every starter scored as we took a 13-6 lead. The first ten minutes of the game we probably couldn’t have played better if we’d tried — we were taking good shots, crashing the boards, getting to the foul line, and everyone was contributing, which helped us build a 23-13 lead after 10 minutes.
With our reserves on the floor, the Penguins used their inside players to make a 8-2 run and close to within four points before a timeout. Out of the timeout, Youngstown’s Pat King hit a three-pointer to make it 25-24. The game was tied at 28-28 with four minutes left in the half, then the Penguins went on another run to take a 37-33 halftime lead.
Despite three first-half fouls, King led all scorers with 10 points in only nine minutes. Jones led the Flames with six, while Cooper added five.
The second half didn’t look like it was going to start off as well for us as the first did, but back-to-back threes by Jones and Miller tied the game at 39. A couple of threes and some foul shots later (every foul in the second half up to this point had been a shooting foul) and Youngstown led 56-50 with 12 minutes left.
During the TV timeout, Coach Mills stood off to the side and let his assistants run the timeout. At the end, he returned to the huddle and told them, “Think. Be smart. Use your spacing. Finish. You’ve beaten those guys before. Remember that.”
That speech was followed by two ill-advised long jumpers.
With King in foul trouble, Mike Dersch had been invaluable for the Penguins, and he hit two threes to give him a game-high 16 points at that point and extend their lead to 65-55 with just under eight minutes to go. They’d been shooting over our 3-2 zone whenever we switched to it, and Mills scrapped it after that. He also seemed set on letting the three seniors — Correa, Jones, and Williams — lead the Flames back, and they did, sort of. With Williams joining White, who had four fouls, back on the floor, our rebounding returned, and we were able to get back into things. With 2:42 left, a Williams putback closed the gap to 71-64.
Cooper returned, replacing a cold-shooting Miller. A Jones jumper that took too long made the score 71-66. Ramon Richardson fouled out with a minute and a half left, but Correa missed the back end of a one-and-one that would have made it a five-point game again. We had three shots on our next possession and missed all three, and our season ended disappointingly with a 76-67 loss.
Dersch came off the Penguins’ bench to lead all scorers with 16 points. King finished with 15. Jones had 11 in his final game to lead us, while Williams had 10 points and 12 rebounds. Our final record is 15-15.
Also:
(1) Butler 107 (Jackson: 29 pts, 10 assists), (8) Detroit 67 (Sanders & Mason: 16 pts)
(2) Wisconsin-Green Bay 74 (Dearman: 16 pts, 14 rebs), (7) Loyola-Chicago 66 (Clay: 19 pts)
(4) Wright St. 91 (Hayes: 25 pts, 8 rebs), (5) Cleveland St. 71 (Chambers: 18 pts, 10 assists)
Semifinals
(1) Butler 82 (Raymond: 17 pts), (4) Wright St. 64 (Jenkins: 12 pts)
(3) Youngstown St. 89 (Sanchez: 21 pts, 5 rebs), (2) Wisconsin-Green Bay 66 (James Smith: 16 pts)
Finals
(1) Butler 88 (Jackson: 22 pts), (3) Youngstown St. 72 (Coursey: 18 pts)
Butler got the No. 11 seed in the West Region of the NCT, and will face 23rd-ranked Missouri in the first round on Thursday. No Horizon League teams made the ACT.
No comments:
Post a Comment