The Western Nebraska Community College men’s basketball team concentrated on shooting free throws during its afternoon shoots around and that concentration paid off as the Cougars shot 23 of 30 from the charity stripe in registering their 8th straight win with a 76-66 win over Central Community College-Columbus in the final day of the Thanksgiving Classic at Cougar Palace. Not only did the Cougars excel from the free throw line, they also were a force on the boards, out-rebounding the Raiders 50-39. Geddes Robinson finished with a double-double of 22 points and 15 rebounds, while Brylle Kamen had eight rebounds and 19 points.
Kamen, who had a career night for the Cougars, said they picked up the pace in the second half. WNCC trailed Central 39-36 at the break and trailed 41-36 early in the second half.
“We responded well after the first half. Coach talked to us in the locker room at half and asked if we could bring more energy to the court,” the freshman from Paris, France, said. “So, we responded and came back with better energy.”
WNCC took the lead for good in the second half as Francisco Cruz canned back-to-back 3-pointers to put WNCC up 44-
42. The Cougars pushed the lead to double digits, 57-46, as Kamen and Robinson had back-to-back offensive rebounds. That was the start of an 8-0 run that put the WNCC up 61-49, their biggest margin of the game.
Central tried coming back, slicing the lead to 66-59 with three minutes to play only to see Robinson hit for four points and Cruz can another bucket to go up 72-59.
Kamen said the big keys for the Cougars were rebounding and free throw shooting.
“We focus every day on rebounding. The first game of the year we got out-rebounded and ever since we have been doing good at rebounding,” he said. “[As for free throw shooting], today in our one o’clock shoot around, we just did an hour and a half of just shooting free throws because Friday we had bad free throw shooting.”
WNCC had three players in double figures. Robinson had 22 points followed by Cruz with 20 and Kamen with 19. Cruz also connected on four 3-pointers and went 6-of-6 from the charity stripe.
WNCC, 8-1, will take its 8-game winning streak into a contest Tuesday night against the defending Region IX champions Lamar Community College at Cougar Palace. Kamen said they are right there of having a fantastic season.
“We are playing better [since our season opener],” he said. “We play Lamar on Tuesday and we are trying to win every game like we should do. Hopefully, from now on, we will keep going like this.”
CCC-Columbus (5-4) 39 27 – 66
WNCC (8-1) 36 40 – 76
CCC-COLUMBUS
Jacob Woslager 9, Sheville Burns 8, Donald Jones 17, Shavontae Samuels 5, Jay battle 8, Lorenzo Wilson 3, Alistair McCann 2, Ian Sitz 14.
WNCC
Saul Torres 7, O’Rion Hughes 2, Francisco Cruz 20, Al-Akeem Watson 2, Brylle Kamen 19, Ritchie Mundende 4, Geddes Robinson 22.
EWC 85, Gillette 80
The Eastern Wyoming College men’s basketball team made 23 of 26 free throws in registering a hard-fought 85-80 win over Gillette College in the first game of the Thanksgiving Classic at Cougar Palace Saturday.
The win was the Lancers second of the season and EWC coach Casey Jones said it feels good to get a win like this with a young ball club.
“This is a long overdue win. We need to get some momentum because we haven’t won much,” he said. “We were in a good situation to be Colby last weekend and we had a great situation to beat a team last night [Friday], but never over the hump. Our guys won a tight, close game against a good sub-region opponent and we have to hope they get a lot of confidence out of this. I think one of the keys is our freshmen class. Tonight we had our sophomores in foul trouble so I looked out there and said, ‘here we go, we have five freshmen out on the floor.’ They are growing in their own way. That is the key for us. They are young freshmen that are trying to step into their roles.”
The Lancers shot 47 percent from the field as well as connecting on 10 3-pointers. Lance Korell was the hot hand, scoring 22 points with three 3-pointers. Korell, a sophomore, was 10-of-10 from the free throw line, including 16 points in the final seven minutes of the game.
Korell was the main thrust that brought the Lancers back. Gillette held a 77-71 lead. Korell followed with back-to-back 3-pointers to tied the game up. Korell then hit two free throws with 2.25 to play to put the Lancers up 79-78. Ivan Simic followed with two more free throws to give the Lancers an 81-78 lead with 38.6 seconds to play.
Gillette cut the lead to 81-80 on a bucket by DeJuan Wright, but Korell connected on four free throws to seal the win for the Lancers.
“This was a little better team tonight for us although we allowed about the same amount of points and it was same kind of situation [as Friday night] as it came down to the last couple possessions,” Jones said. “Any team that can go 23 of 26 from the free throw line will put themselves in a good position to win.”
EWC put four players in double figures. Korell finished with 22 points followed by Winston Harris with 16, Simic had 13 points followed by Darius Gordon with 10.
EWC (2-6) 37 48 – 85
Gillette (6-3) 37 43 – 80
EWC
Fola Adeleke 8, Lance Korell 22, Zach Young 2, Darius Gordon 10, Cameron Richardson 6, Matt Schackow 2, T.K. Kairys 2, Kevin Brown 4, Winston Harris 16, Ivan Simic 13.
GILLETTE
Darnell Maze 4, Darieus Perry 4, Willia Eddie 11, Nik Mandic 13, Patrick Webb 4, Brean Tennant 13, DeJuan Wright 17, Ryan Aaron 3, Warren Moore 4, Lovell Cook 5.
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