Box Score
Upset? Fourth-ranked Kentucky Wesleyan was having nothing of an upset on Saturday afternoon.
Facing Missouri S&T less than 48 hours after the Miners stunned No. 2 Southern Indiana in Evansville, the alert and intense Panthers crushed the Miners 91-58 in a men's NCAA Division II basketball game before a crowd of 3,011 at the Sportscenter.
KWC remains undefeated (12-0, 4-0 Great Lakes Valley Conference) entering a three-game league road swing that begins Thursday at Rockhurst.
“S&T going on the road and upsetting USI got the attention of our players,” Panthers head coach Todd Lee said, “and I think they were determined to come out and make statement at both ends of the floor.
“We started the game shooting the basketball very well, and as the game went along I thought we settled into a nice defensive game, too. We're making strides at the defensive end and that's pleasing to see, because it's been a point of emphasis for us.”
Missouri S&T (2-11, 1-4) hung around for the first 10 minutes before Wesleyan went on a 15-4 run to seize control --
Cardell McFarland's 3-pointer inside the final five seconds pushing the Panthers in front 48-31 at intermission.
“I thought we did a good job of making them shoot tough shots,” Lee said. “They've got some very
good offensive players, but I thought we were good about helping each other out at the defensive end and making it pretty tough for them to find open looks.
“When you get into league play, knowing and executing the scouting report really becomes important, and we showed in this game that we're making progress in that area.”
The Miners had rallied from an 18-point deficit to stun Southern Indiana, but the way Wesleyan opened the second half nullified any possibility of that occurring for the second time in three days.
The Panthers blitzed S&T with an 11-0 run, with
Brandon Johnson's conventional three-point play at 16:39 providing KWC a 59-31 advantage. The Miners never got closer than 25 points the rest of the way.
Wesleyan led by as many as 35 points on three different occasions.
KWC was paced by senior forward
Anthony Young's 26 points.
Cornbread Walker, who nailed four 3-pointers, added 16 points, and McFarland finished with 13.
The Panthers sizzled the nets at 59 percent (26-of-44) and were 50 percent from 3-point range (10-of-20) for the second consecutive game. Wesleyan also made 29-of-37 foul shots (78 percent), paced by Young's 13-of-14 perfornance.
Missouri S&T's balanced attack was led by swingman Tommy Pelczynski's 12 points. Michael Jackson, Nusrath Kahn and Curtis Okafor each added 10.
The Miners shot 37 percent from the floor, making only 3-of-14 shots from 3-point range (21 percent). S&T also turned the ball over 17 times, compared to just eight floor errors for KWC.
“We took care of business at home like you're supposed to and now we go on the road for a critical stretch,” Lee said. “It's so tough to win on the road, and we need to be at our best every game if we expect to have success.
“In the meantime, we'll continue to work hard and try to get better day by day.”
