Box Score
After two straight similar results against No. 19 Southern Indiana, Kentucky Wesleyan coach Todd Lee was blunt when assessing Thursday's 71-55 loss to the Screaming Eagles.
"They're a lot better than us at this time," Lee said. "They caused a bunch of matchup problems that we struggled with. They've got guards that are seniors that lead their team. We need some help there. We have a lot of new guys that at times go off on their own.
"When you're in an arena when they're making a run, instead of keeping their poise, we didn't do that. We went off our own, tried to make a big play or tried to go right away. That compounds itself against a very good team."
With the loss, KWC will host William Jewell at 3 p.m. Sunday in the first round of the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament.
USI (20-6, 13-5 GLVC) dealt KWC (19-7, 11-7) a few punches early on and kept kicking the Panthers while they were down.
Much like the first game between the two teams, KWC struggled to knock down shots. The Panthers shot a season-low 33.3 percent from the field, surpassing the previous low of 33.9 percent set in the first game against USI. The Eagles won that game 72-53.
USI went on a 27-4 run in the first half to go up 35-19 after trailing 15-8, and did it all without the help of standout center Keith DeWitt.
DeWitt headed to the bench at the 14:34 mark with two fouls and didn't play the rest of the half.
Instead, USI's guards caught fire and KWC went scoreless over a 5:01 stretch midway through the half.
KWC wasn't able to capitalize on DeWitt's absence, getting just two points from Dominique Dawson and none from leading scorer Dazmond Starke in the first half and went into halftime down 37-23.
Dawson finished with six points and five rebounds while Starke, who averages 16 points and eight rebounds per game, scored just five points and grabbed four rebounds.
"Dazmond has always struggled against bigger, taller players," Lee said. "He's going to struggle against them at times.
He had trouble getting the ball, so they were able to enter the ball to the post. We couldn't enter the ball to the post because they were denying him. We weren't denying their post as we worked on and talked about."
This is the second time that KWC has limited DeWitt to single digits – he had eight points in this game – but allowed USI's guards to beat them. Orlando Rutledge, who led USI with 14 points in the first matchup against KWC – torched the Panther defense for 23 points and also grabbed 11 rebounds.
Defensively, USI finished with nine blocks.
USI coach Rodney Watson was pleased with how his team executed the game plan.
"We really needed to fortify the middle of the floor against Wesleyan," he said. "I can't give Lucas Barker enough credit. We have so much respect for him and we just feel as he goes, the team goes because he gets people involved, he gets your big guys involved. It was a physical game and it went to our favor in terms of how the momentum went."
KWC cut it to 14 midway through the second half, but picked up back-to-back technical fouls on Rico Ferguson and Todd Lee. Ferguson and Rutledge got into a bit of a scuffle after a play and that's where it all started.
Lee was then given a technical foul, arguing that Rutledge should have been called for a technical foul as well. USI cruised the rest of the way after that.
With the way his team prepared for Thursday's game, Lee said he knew his team would come out flat.
"The preparation wasn't very good," Lee said. "That's the lack of maturity that we have on the team and at times the lack of leadership from our upperclassmen, so that needs to improve…it isn't often that a coach, at this stage of the season, going into a game with this magnitude has to get after the team in shoot-around because we're not ready to play and I had to do that today."
