The Lincoln Blue Tigers knew they’d a giant alternative Saturday with the defending MIAA champions and seventh-ranked Central Oklahoma Bronchos on the town.
The Blue Tigers additionally know they let one slip away, because the Bronchos used a giant 19-3 run to shut the primary half en route to choosing up 78-63 victory at Jason Gym.
“I want it to be a sour moment,” Lincoln coach Jimmy Drew mentioned. “We let a really big opportunity go, there’s no sugarcoating that. I want it to sting. I want our guys to think we let one go because we did. It was a big opportunity and we didn’t show up like we needed to.”
Lincoln jumped out to a quick begin and received forward 14-7 after a Arash Yaqubi 3 capped off a 7-0 Blue Tiger run.
Central Oklahoma was in a position to tie the sport at 14 lower than two minutes later with its personal 7-0 run.
The sport was tied at 16 with 11:06 left within the opening 20 minutes earlier than the Bronchos took the momentum and by no means gave it again.
A DJ Richardson 3 lower the Bronchos’ lead to 27-23 earlier than the massive run began.
The Bronchos buried 4 3s in the course of the 19-3 run — with three coming in transition — to take full management of the sport and a 46-26 lead at halftime.
“We told our guys before that this is the best transition team we have played,” Drew mentioned. “They are averaging 93 a game and a lot of that comes in transition and with transition 3s. They had 18 points off of transition in the first half and 15 off of our turnovers.
“Thirty-three of their 46 points came off of us beating us and that’s the disappointing thing.”
Central Oklahoma led by as a lot as 24 factors at 60-36 with 12:11 left, however the Blue Tigers would start their push for a comeback to comply with.
Lincoln was in a position to rattle off six straight factors to lower it beneath 20 earlier than the Bronchos began answering blow for blow to push their lead again to 66-46 with 6:43 remaining.
“It was good to see our guys scrap back,” Drew mentioned. “We cut it to 13 a couple different times but we just couldn’t quite get it back. We kept telling them to get it to single digits and see what kind of game it becomes but we just couldn’t quite get there and that’s a credit to them.”
The Blue Tigers put collectively their greatest run of the sport to comply with, scoring seven straight to lower their deficit 66-53 with simply greater than 5 minutes on the clock and power a Central Oklahoma timeout.
The Bronchos stored answering, as they pushed their lead again to 17 on two totally different events — the final coming with 1:05 left on the clock to all however finish the sport.
“Most good teams do have answers, that’s why they are good,” Drew mentioned. “I don’t think that we did a good job in the first half of responding to their run. … We didn’t have an answer to their run. When we went on a run, they answered. That’s the sign of a good team.”
Lincoln struggled to get offensive manufacturing from anybody however Artese Stapleton, as he completed with 29 factors on 11-of-19 taking pictures. The subsequent highest scoring whole for the Blue Tigers was Richardson with 10 factors.
Outside of Richardson and Stapleton, the remainder of the group shot simply 9-for-28.
“When shots aren’t falling, it’s just tough for some guys,” Drew mentioned. “We have older guys, we got to be mentally tough enough to fix that. Some of our guys are going through that. We don’t have a lot of guys producing like maybe they thought they would.
“… We do need somebody to step up. We are trying to search for that a little bit. Somebody will emerge.”
Central Oklahoma (7-0, 2-0 MIAA) was led by Jaden Wells, who completed with 19 factors after taking pictures 5-for-7 from behind the arc. Curtis Haywood II was subsequent with 14 factors, and Tre’Veon Ellis plus Luke Haasl joined them in double figures with 10 factors every.
Lincoln (4-2, 1-2) will probably be off for eight days till Dec. 11 when the Blue Tigers journey to Central Missouri for a 3 p.m. MIAA matchup.
Drew needs his group to use the frustration as gasoline in the course of the break day and are available again higher from it.
“For the next eight days it needs to be a kick in the pants for us,” he mentioned. “We need to be hungrier than any team in the country to bounce back and fix it.”
[my_adsense_shortcode_1]
put up credit score to Source link
[my_taboola_shortcode_1]
