December 7, 2006                    

Cowley men knock off eighth ranked Brown Mackie 65-61

The Cowley College men’s basketball team received an early Christmas present with a 65-61 road win at Brown Mackie Wednesday night in Salina.

The Tigers not only picked up their first road win of the season, they handed the Lions their first home loss of the year. Brown Mackie, ranked eighth in the latest NJCAA Division II basketball poll, shot 52.6 percent from the floor in an 82-73 win at Cowley on Nov. 28. However, the Lions shot just 32.8 percent in Wednesday night’s loss.

After going through a five-game losing streak, the Tigers head into Christmas break on a two-game winning streak that has evened their record at 6-6.

“After going through a losing streak it is nice to see the kids respond and turn it around,” Cowley head coach Brian Jackson said. “Hopefully, a win like this will build some confidence going into the second semester.”

Cowley trailed 24-22 at the end of the first half and 26-22 after a basket by Brown Mackie to open the second half. The Tigers proceeded to go on a 12-2 run to lead 34-28 and never trailed again. Cowley’s largest lead was 57-46 with just over two minutes remaining.

Tiger sophomore Santwon Latunde finished with a game-high 19 points and 16 rebounds, while freshman Sanijay Watts added 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting.

“We really made an effort to get them the ball,” Cowley assistant coach Brandon Lesovsky said. “They both did a nice job of posting deep.”

After getting just seven shot attempts in two games played at the Jayhawk Shootout in Coffeyville over the weekend, the Tiger coaches decided to move Watts from the guard position to down low.

“He really scores the ball well from inside, so I think moving him will help us tremendously,” Jackson said.

Joining Latunde and Watts in double figures were point guard James Loe (12 points) and Tommy Williams (10 points). Williams provided the Tigers with a spark off the bench as he hit 4-of-5 shot attempts and made both of his three-point tries.

Cowley went 10-of-19 from the floor in the second half, and made 22-of-28 free-throw attempts in the game’s final 20 minutes of play.

Darnell Kimble and Earnest Noel led Brown Mackie with 15 points a piece in the defeat. The loss drops the Lions’ record to 10-3 on the season.

Cowley will not be back in action until Jan. 3 when they play at Labette at 8 p.m. The game can be heard on KACY 102.5 FM.

Box score:

Cowley (65): Matt Muncy 1-6 0-0 3, Ludovic Dovonou 0-0 0-0 0, Eric Hammond 1-6 0-0 2, James Loe 1-3 9-10 12, Santwon Latunde 4-11 11-16 19, Sanijay Watts 7-10 3-4 17, Larry Cox 1-3 0-2 2, Joe Harvey 0-2 0-0 0, Tommy Williams 4-5 0-0 10, Nikola Grbicic 0-1 0-0 0. Totals: 19-47 23-32 65.

Brown Mackie (61): Earnest Noel 4-15 4-6 15, Adrian Dixon 1-4 0-0 2, Darnell Kimble 6-14 3-8 15, Tommy Adams 1-4 4-4 7, Dei Dei 1-5 2-4 4, Chris Milum 4-8 2-2 12, Leon Myers 0-2 0-0 0, Kendral Carter 1-2 0-0 2, Calvin Howard 2-7 0-0 4, Aaron Cole 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 20-61 15-24 61.

Three-pointers: Cowley 4-10 (Muncy 1-4, Hammond 0-2, Williams 2-2, Loe 1-2), Brown Mackie 6-21 (Milum 2-6, Noel 3-11, Adams 1-4). Rebounds: Cowley 43 (Latunde 16), Brown Mackie 37 (Kimble 8). Assists: Cowley 14 (Loe 4), Brown Mackie 15 (Milum, Noel 4). Turnovers: Cowley 19, Brown Mackie 14. Total fouls: Cowley 19, Brown Mackie 23. Fouled out: Dixon. Technicals: none.