Skip To Main Content
Skip To Main Content

Kentucky Wesleyan College Athletics

Scoreboard

Panthers' Lee still confident in squad
Head coach Todd Lee directs offense at the Sportscenter.

Panthers' Lee still confident in squad

Game Notes

The Kentucky Wesleyan College men's basketball team appears to need a strong finish for it to cap the season with a bid into the NCAA Division II Tournament.

KWC is No. 7 in the Midwest Region rankings, with the top eight teams selected for postseason play. But the potential problem for the Panthers is a brutal closing stretch to the regular season that begins with a visit to No. 18 Northern Kentucky today.

While the Panthers (15-6, 8-6 Great Lakes Valley Conference) are coming off a damaging 69-54 loss at Maryville on Sunday, KWC coach Todd Lee is confident his team can finish strong.

"The good thing about all of this is every team we play is going to be in the NCAA, they're all ahead of us in the regional rankings," Lee said.

The Panthers visit Indianapolis on Saturday before hosting Southern Indiana, second in the Midwest Region behind Bellarmine, on Monday. They then close the regular season at Bellarmine on Feb. 19.

"By beating any of those teams, any win over any of those teams will help us," said Lee, while conceding "our backs are against the wall."

KWC has had trouble stringing together victories lately. It has not won back-to-back games since running off four straight from Jan. 6 through Jan. 15.

Since then, the Panthers have lost crucial home games to Northern Kentucky (18-4, 11-3) in overtime and to Lewis.

But those setbacks didn't compare to losing at Maryville, which improved to 6-15, 3-11.

"That loss on Sunday really hurt us, but we've got a great opportunity to do some good things," Lee said. "We control our own destiny as far as winning games."

To defeat Northern, the Panthers will have to play much better than they did in losing 91-82 to the Norse on Jan. 22 at the Sportscenter.

They didn't do a good job on Northern's outside shooters, who made 8-of-17 shots from 3-point range (47 percent).

"We got spread out some against them, and we've got to do a better job with our help defense," Lee said.

Malcolm Eleby and Bobby Shannon each scored 17 points to lead the Norse against KWC.

Anthony Young scored 23 points to lead the Panthers the first time against Northern. KWC got 18 points from both Cardell McFarland and Kwan Waller.
Print Friendly Version