CONCORDIA, Kansas — Empty and extra possessions proved to be the difference makers in Saturday's KJCCC showdown between the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team and the visiting Independence Community College Pirates.

Independence walked away with a tight 82-78 victory, capitalizing on 24 Cloud County turnovers and 17 offensive rebounds. In total, the Pirates (9-7 overall, 6-7 KJCCC) finished with 27 more field goal opportunities.

"It was 27 more shots stemming primarily from the 24 turnovers. I don't care who you're playing; if you allow someone to take 27 more shots than you, you're not going to be successful," said Cloud County head coach, Jordan Altman.

Independence showed a full-court press much of the evening, which contributed to the 24 turnovers by the T-Birds (5-11 overall, 3-10 KJCCC). But it was the handful of self-inflicted turnovers and poor fundamental passes that ballooned the final tally and proved costly.

"We have a very big problem with attention to detail," Altman said. "When you look at the number of passes we made where the passer was standing straight up and down with no leverage, or it was a one-handed pass, or a chest pass when it should have been over the head pass; it's disappointing because those are all things we worked on. Coach (Todd) Johnston put together an excellent scouting report, we identified the things we needed to do to be prepared for Independence and we still made those mistakes."

The turnovers offset what was otherwise a great performance on each end of the floor for Cloud County as it shot 54 percent (23-of-43) for the game — the second best shooting performance by the team in a conference game this season — while limiting the Pirates to 34 percent shooting (24-of-70).

Cloud County, which led by as many as 11 points in the first half, found itself down 11 with 6:23 remaining before it implementing a box-and-one on Pirates' star guard, DeAnthony McCallum.

McCallum finished with a game-high 22 points, but had to work hard for it as the T-Birds limited him to 4-of-15 shooting, opening the door for them to get back in the game.

"DeAnthony McCallum, in my opinion, is the best player in the KJCCC… I think he is the most valuable player on any one team," Altman said. "When he started to get going, we tried to take him away. We had yet to practice the box-and-1, but (Saturday) the guys did an excellent job. I thought it allowed us to stay in the game."

Cloud County went on a 12-2 run over the next 3:28, cutting the deficit to one at 74-73 with 3:55 remaining on a 3-pointer by sophomore guard, Solomon Finley.

The T-Birds were within one again at 76-75 with 1:11 remaining, but were unable to tie or retake the lead as Independence, which shot 19-of-22 from the charity stripe in the second half, was able to knock down its free throws in the final minute to hold on for the 82-78 final.

Finley scored a career-high 19 points on 6-of-9 shooting in the loss, tying him for the team high in points with freshman guard JaVary Christmas.

Redshirt freshman Alvin Thompson added 14 points, while redshirt sophomore Ramion Burt Jr. went for 10 points and 11 rebounds in his first game back following a two-game absence due to a concussion.

Up next for the T-Birds will be a four-game road trip to kick off the second half of the KJCCC schedule, starting with Dodge City Community College at 8 p.m. on Wednesday.

"We'll see what this team has. I mentioned to them in the locker room that (Saturday) is just the end of the first half of the conference season. We still have half our season left," Altman said. "We have, at minimum, 14 games left with the 13 conference games and one guaranteed Region VI tournament game. If we can continue to move forward and continue to get better, we'll see how this goes. But if we decide we're done, it's going to be a long stretch."