November 7, 2005

Hot shooting Thunderbirds drop Cowley to 0-2

Allowing Cloud County to shoot 66 percent from the floor, the Cowley College men’s basketball team suffered a 91-50 loss Saturday night in Concordia.

Just four nights after losing to Cloud by only five points (73-68) in its season opener, Cowley never found a rhythm in the 41-point defeat. Cloud raced out to an 11-2 lead and used 70.8 percent shooting to lead 47-21 at the end of the first half.

The Thunderbirds would outscore the Tigers 25-4 to open the second half as they built a 72-25 lead with 10 minutes left to play. James Williams led Cloud with 20 points and five rebounds, while Cassin Diggs added 12 points.

“For whatever reason we are not playing well,” Cowley head coach Brian Jackson said. “All we can do is go back to the drawing board and keep trying to preach the right things. We will find a way to get our team straightened out.”

Cowley, which is now 0-2 on the season, got 10 points a piece from Marcus Watts and Julio Anthony. Freshman Justin Houser came off the bench to grab six rebounds in his 16 minutes of action.

The Tigers will be back in action Wednesday when they travel to Tonkawa, Okla., to take on Northern Oklahoma College at 8 p.m.

“It’s always tough to play down there,” Jackson said. “We are not playing well right now, but we are not going to quit fighting. I still like this basketball team and we still have a chance to be very good, we just have to get our stuff together.”

Box score:

Cowley (50): Marcus Watts 5-14 0-4 10, Lionel Saban 2-4 0-2 4, Josh Cummings 3-5 0-0 6, Julio Anthony 3-10 4-4 10, Dane Kelly 2-3 0-2 5, Jay Crayton 0-0 0-0 0, Andy Bonczyk 0-1 0-0 0, Joe Harvey 0-0 0-0 0, James Franklin 0-3 0-0 0, Dwight Page 1-3 0-2 3, Matt Muncy 3-4 0-0 6, Santwon Latunde 2-6 0-0 4, Justin Houser 1-1 0-0 2. Totals: 22-54 4-14 50.

Cloud (91): Mamadou Sy 3-6 0-0 7, Reed Hein 2-5 2-2 8, Cassin Diggs 4-5 4-6 12, Geremey Gibson 3-3 0-1 6, James Williams 5-6 7-9 20, B.J. Nimocks 3-4 0-2 6, Quentin Turner 0-2 5-8 5, Mark Herbster 3-5 0-0 7, Heath Baird 1-2 1-2 3, Egan Grafel 3-5 0-0 8, Bret Shaw 2-2 1-2 5, Mike Lytle 2-2 0-2 4. Totals: 31-47 20-34 91.

Three-pointers: Cowley 2-13 (Watts 0-2, Bonczyk 0-1, Cummings 0-2, Anthony 0-2, Franklin 0-2, Kelly 1-2, Page 1-2), Cloud 9-13 (Sy 1-1, Hein 2-4, Herbster 1-2, Baird 0-1, Grafel 2-2, Williams 3-3). Rebounds: Cowley 28 (Watts, Houser 6), Cloud 34 (Shaw 6). Assists: Cowley 11 (Franklin 5), Cloud 22 (Hein 5). Turnovers: Cowley 28, Cloud 26. Total fouls: Cowley 25, Cloud 19. Fouled out: Saban.

Technicals: Cummings.