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Panthers crush Parkside
Kentucky Wesleyan College’s Desmond Stephens passes the ball behind Wisconsin-Parkside’s Grant Johnson in the first half of Sunday’s Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament quarterfinal game at the Sportscenter. KWC won 93-66. John Dunham, Messenger-Inquirer

Panthers crush Parkside

Desmond Stephens took over midway through the first half and Kentucky Wesleyan College followed him to a big win Sunday in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament.

The senior guard notched a double-double with 26 points and 10 assists to go with six steals in leading the No. 4 Panthers to a 93-66 win over Wisconsin-Parkside in front of 2,500 fans at the Sportscenter.

"We were giving him some leeway to help off their point guard," KWC coach Todd Lee said. "Desmond had several opportunities to step out into the passing lanes. He has a good feel for where to help."

The Panthers helped themselves into the semifinals of the GLVC Tournament on Saturday at Illinois-Springfield. They will face nemesis Northern Kentucky in a 6 p.m. matchup. The winner of that matchup will play for the league title at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.

To get there, KWC (28-3) had to dispose of Parkside, which finished 10-19.

It wasn't easy through the first 13 minutes, with KWC holding a 22-19 lead, in part because of two straight steals and layups by Stephens. He made another steal-layup combination to push KWC in front 26-19 after Andree' Wilson scored a tough basket inside.

That was the beginning of a 20-2 KWC run which saw Stephens score seven points, Kwan Waller get four points and Maros Zuffa add four more to put the Panthers on top 42-21.

"I was just looking to be aggressive on defense, and we were able to turn them over," Stephens said. "Having this week off, we had a lot of energy."

Stephens had 19 points and four steals in the first half.

KWC wanted to keep the pressure on in the early stages of the second half and it pushed out to a 60-32 advantage with 14:28 to go.

"When you go in with a big lead, you talk about segments of the game," Lee said. "You're trying to win the first five minutes, then the next five minutes."

Willie Richardson got more active in the second half, scoring 10 of his 14 points. Richardson had the highlight of the afternoon when he got out on the break, gave the ball up to Waller, who passed it back up to the rim where Richardson threw down a tomahawk dunk that fired up the crowd.

"We came out to play hard and we executed," Richardson said.

KWC scored 31 fast-break points while Parkside didn't get a fast-break basket. Parkside committed 17 turnovers.

Wilson was the other double-figure scorer for KWC with 10 points, but it got at least six points from seven players.

All those easy buckets contributed to 53 percent shooting from the field (35-of-66), including 37 percent from 3-point range (6-of-16). The Panthers slipped some at the free-throw line, hitting 17-of-26 attempts for 65 percent.

Parkside made only 23-of-66 shots for 34.8 percent from the floor. Parkside was 4-of-19 from 3-point range for 21 percent.

Now, the Panthers will start to prepare for NKU, which they split with during the regular season. KWC will go back to work Tuesday after having today off.

"We'll keep on going and prepare like we should for every game," Lee said.
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