Box Score
Only one game remains between the Kentucky Wesleyan men's basketball team and the NCAA Division II Tournament.
C.J. Blackwell scored a game-high 25 points to lead the No. 9 Panthers in a 100-69 drubbing of Davis & Elkins in the semifinals of the G-MAC Championship tournament on Friday at the Sportscenter, and KWC will play for the league title on Saturday at 1 p.m.
The Panthers will compete for the right at an automatic NCAA Tournament bid against Trevecca Nazarene, which advanced earlier in the day with a 77-55 win over two-time defending conference champion Alderson Broaddus.
Blackwell shot 9-of-15 from the floor and matched a career-best with 6-of-9 makes from 3-point range for KWC (26-3), while Ken-Jah Bosley finished with 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting. Devin Langford added 14 points and nine rebounds, and Jermaine Morgan had 10 points with seven boards.
"For us today, I thought C.J. was really good and better defensively," Panthers coach Happy Osborne said. "Devin was aggressive. I thought Ken-Jah was really, really good early, and I was glad to get him out of there. I was able to get him and C.J. out and really rest them late."
It didn't take long for the Panthers to get rolling, as they jumped out to an 18-8 lead nearly six minutes into the contest. A layup by Aleksander Vasiljevic cut the lead to six points with 7:23 left in the first half, but KWC -- which led wire-to-wire -- used a 19-7 run to push the lead back to 45-27 less than two minutes before halftime.
The Panthers led 49-31 at intermission, and the Senators (12-17) never got within single digits for the remainder of the game.
To put an exclamation mark on the day, Adam Stanford scored all nine of his points in the final three minutes of the game during a 15-4 run, which was capped off by a steal and layup from Luis Becerra with 19 seconds to play.
"Davis & Elkins played yesterday, so we knew they'd be a little leg-weary," Osborne said. "I thought our depth was good, as always, and that's a big key to our team -- being able to reach down the bench and have those guys."
KWC finished the game shooting 55.1 percent from the floor and made 11-of-21 shots from 3-point range. Meanwhile, the Panthers limited Davis & Elkins to just 36.2 percent from the field and 10-of-31 from beyond the arc.
Vasiljevic was the Senators' lone double-figure scorer with 18 points, while star Kevin Bracy-Davis -- who scored 35 points in Thursday's quarterfinal win over Cedarville -- finished with just seven points on 3-of-10 shooting.
Osborne insists his team needs a repeat performance, or even better, against the Trojans on Saturday.
In Trevecca's victory over Alderson Broaddus earlier Friday, Percy Blade, Jalen Palm and Tyrell Corlew each scored 15 points to pace the Trojans. Byron Sanford, the G-MAC Player of the Year, scored nine points with eight rebounds, and Matt Gamberoni added eight points with six boards.
"We've got to play defense against this team, against this super-coached team and the player of the year in Byron Sanford," Osborne said. "They're good. Blade's good, Palm's good, Corlew's good, Gamberoni inside -- I know they're going to bring it."
It will be the third consecutive time that the Panthers have played for the G-MAC crown, but this season marks the first time they've ever been the tournament host. The last two seasons, KWC fell to Alderson Broaddus in the championship game in Philippi, West Virginia.
"These guys, Devin and Ken-Jah, have been here for three years," Osborne said. "They've been here for every up and every down, and now they're on the verge of an opportunity for a championship again. This time, there's a little bit more at stake. There's nothing I would like better than for our kids to get that chance, and our fans.
"We never lost sight of our goal, and we're so close again. We've been here the last two years, and now we've just got to go out and play."
