CONCORDIA, Kan. – After ending the first-half on an 11-0 run to take a 38-34 lead, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team would score just 21 points in the final 18:41 of the game to end up falling to Neosho County Community College by a score of 76-64 inside of Arley Bryant Gymnasium in Concordia, Kansas on Wednesday, January 29th.

Halfway through Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference East Division play, Cloud County is now 8-15 overall and 2-12 in the KJCCC while Neosho picked up their ninth win of the year to improve to 9-13 overall and 5-8 in conference play.

Shots would not fall for the T-Birds to start the game, allowing the Panthers to score the first nine points of the contest before seeing CCCC get on the board with an Iyen Enaruna layup with 17:06 remaining in the first half. Cloud County would cut the deficit from nine to six, but see Neosho push the lead back out to eight as the T-Birds could get no closer than five throughout the opening 15-plus minutes of the contest. Neosho's lead would sit at 34-27 on a Jonathan Breeland free throw with 6:04 left before halftime when Cloud County would hold the Panthers without a point for the rest of the opening 20 minute period while scoring the final 11 points of the half to take a 38-34 lead. Six of the 11 points would come in the final 58 seconds of the half as the T-Birds would take their first lead to grab momentum heading into halftime.

A layup from DJ Sims and Enaruna free throw would give Cloud County their largest lead of the game at 41-34 just 79 seconds into the second half, but things would quickly turn south as the Panthers would break out full-court pressure and go on a 10-2 run to reclaim the lead at 44-43. Neosho would continue their run out of a Cloud County timeout, scoring seven of the next nine to turn the run into a 17-4 run that would put the Panthers up 51-45 with just over 15 minutes left in the contest.

Cloud County would keep within striking distance throughout the next several minutes of action, not allowing Neosho to take a lead of more than five until a 7-0 run out of the under 10-minute media timeout pushed the lead to double-digits. Two quick buckets from Cloud County would get the T-Birds back within six, but Neosho would have an answer to go up 13 at 72-59 with just over four minutes remaining. Down the stretch, Cloud County would be unable to get the deficit down to single-digits as points would prove to be far and few in between as Neosho would hang on for the 12-point victory.

Poor second-half shooting in all facets of the game would see a 10-of-31 (32.3 percent) field goal percentage coupled by a two-for-10 (20 percent) outing from beyond the arc and four-of-nine (44.4 percent) performance from the free throw line in the final 20 minutes spoil a 45.2 percent (14-of-31) first-half field goal percentage. Cloud County would win the rebounding edge by a 45-32 margin after holding a 30-12 advantage in the first half, but be hammered by a 23-6 difference in points off turnovers in favor of Neosho. The Panthers would also hold a 36-32 advantage in points in the paint and 10-4 advantage in fast break points to help seal the win.

Top performers for CCCC would see Enaruna score a team-high 20 points and grab 12 rebounds while Chad Vincent-Simon scored 18 points off the bench. Only one other T-Bird would come within striking distance of double-figures, with Dyelan Reed scoring nine and grabbing six rebounds.

What's Next?

Cloud County will four of their final six games of the regular-season at home, but not before a quick one game road trip to Butler Community College for a 7:30 p.m. tip-off on Wednesday, February 5th. Butler dropped a 106-87 decision at Cowley on Wednesday night and will be in action against Coffeyville on Saturday before playing host to the T-Birds next week. In the first matchup between the Grizzlies and CCCC back on January 13th, Butler took a 79-59 decision over Cloud County in Concordia.