No. 7 Warriors snap MCC’s five-game win streak
OTTUMWA, Iowa – Seventh-ranked Indian Hills Community College ended the first half strong Wednesday night and started even stronger in the second half and coasted to a 95-61 win over the McCook Community College men.
“It was an extremely disappointing night,” said MCC Assistant Coach Drake Henderson. “Our guys weren’t ready for this kind of game.”
The Warriors led 32-30 with 3:58 left in the first half and went on an 8-2 run to lead 40-32 at intermission then went on a 24-2 run over the first 6:14 of the second half to take charge of the game.
“I thought the first half was alright for the first 15 minutes but the last five minutes they punched us in the mouth and we never responded,” said Henderson. “The second half, we came out and never responded. It was a disappointing result.”
Indian Hills shot 55.6 from the field, made 12 of 23 triples (52.2 percent) and made 13 of 15 free throws (86.7 percent). The Warriors converted 21 MCC turnovers into 33 points and outrebounded the Indians 43-22.
Sophomore Mo Diao, (Darkar, Senegal) led MCC with 20 points, going eight-for-11 from the field and sinking MCC’s only 3-pointer on the night, and going three-for-three from the free-throw line.
Nate Coley (sophomore Little Rock, Ark.) scored 12 points and went four-for-five from the free-throw line. This is the 91st time he has been to the free-throw line which leads all D1 players in the nation.
Freshman Sofiane Benragba (Montpellier, France) scored nine points off the bench. Redshirt freshman Alier Alier (Bor, South Sudan) led MCC with six rebounds to go along with seven points and sophomore Lukas Gudavicius, (Palanga, Lithuania) added six points.
MCC shot 44.4 percent from the field, made just one of 10 shots from beyond the 3-point line, and made 13 of 22 free throws (59.1 percent).
The Warriors improve to 12-1 on the season and complete the sweep over MCC having beat the Indians 88-73 on Nov. 21 in the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center. Indian Hills’ only loss came to No. 2 Snow College (Utah) on Nov. 15, 80-71.
“Indian Hills is a national tournament team, and the goal was to come up here and prove that we’re a national tournament team as well,” said Henderson. “We’re not there yet, but we’re working our way to that point.”
Wednesday’s loss snaps a five-game win streak for the Indians who fall to 10-4 on the season.
MCC will wrap up the fall schedule in Paradise, Nevada next week at the Las Vegas Tarkanian Classic taking on No. 2 Snow College (11-0) on Dec. 18 at 3:30 p.m. followed with a Friday game against Salt Lake Community College (5-6) starting at 8:45 p.m. CST.
“The good news is next week we get two more chances to try and prove that point. We have a lot of work to do and we’re going to get back to McCook and get to work,” said Henderson. “This was disappointing but not the end of the world. There is a lot of season left and lot of time to grow. We’re going to try and do that in Vegas next week.”
After the Christmas break, all games on the schedule will be games against Region IX opponents starting with a home against North Platte Community College on Jan. 10 at 4 p.m.
Up-to-date information about MCC men’s basketball including livestream links for home games, schedule, statistics, rosters, photos and more can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com