EL DORADO, Kan. – The top two defenses in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference and two of the top-10 scoring defenses in the NJCAA lived up to their billing as the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team dropped a 63-50 decision to number 19 ranked Butler Community College inside the Power Plant in El Dorado, Kansas on Wednesday, January 17th.
Held to the third-lowest scoring output in third-year head coach
Devin Kastrup's 80-game tenure, Cloud County falls to 12-5 overall and 7-4 in the KJCCC with the defeat while Butler picks up their 14th win of the year to improve to 14-3 overall and 9-2 in the KJCCC.
Following three straight games of shooting over 50 percent from the field, things came to a screeching halt offensively for CCCC on Wednesday night as the T-Birds shot a season-low 30.2 percent from the field and matched a season-low with only four made three-point field goals. After seeing both teams go scoreless in the opening three minutes of play, Butler managed to break a scoreless tie with a made field goal at the 16:52 mark of the first half before allowing a made
Kyle McElroy layup to tie the game at 2-2 with both teams trading the opening eight points of the contest back-and-forth as part of two ties through the first four minutes of action. Continuing to trade points by answering made three-point field goals back-and-forth, Butler began to take control with a 5-0 run while holding CCCC scoreless for a span of 5:07 and without a made field goal for nearly six minutes of game time. Despite the limited offensive opportunities, Cloud County limited the Grizzlies from expanding their lead past six before getting within three with a made
Abdoulaye Fall free throw with 7:50 left in the first half to make the score 17-14 in favor of BCC.
Made layups from both teams kept the deficit for Cloud County at three until back-to-back made triples for Butler that pushed the Grizzly lead out to nine at 25-16 as the T-Birds were forced to use their first timeout to try and stop momentum from growing any further in favor of BCC. Butler extended their lead to 10 with 4:43 left before halftime until back-to-back layups from Fall that allowed Cloud County to stay within striking distance at 27-21 with still three-and-a-half minutes left before intermission to try and make a run. Unfortunately for CCCC, Butler managed to keep the T-Birds off the scoreboard the rest of the first half while scoring the final five points of the first at the charity stripe to push their lead back out to double-digits to go into the locker room with a 32-21 advantage after 20 minutes of action.
The trend of points from the charity stripe continued for Butler in the opening minutes of the second half as the Grizzlies offset a made Fall trey with three free throws to push their lead back out to 11 before continuing to outscore CCCC 5-2 to grow their lead to 14 at 40-26. Needing to keep the deficit from growing any larger, Cloud County managed to stop the momentum and lead from getting bigger despite being unable to get back within single-digits until the 7:31 mark of the second half with a made
Emmanuel Manyuon three to trail 46-37.
Still with enough time to mount a comeback and make things interesting down the stretch, CCCC managed to get within eight at 48-40 and 50-42 with just under five minutes remaining before an 8-3 run by Butler that not only extended the lead back to 13 but also ate away most of the remaining time available to the T-Birds to mount a comeback. With the deficit at double-digits with just over a minute remaining in the game, CCCC scored five of the next six to get back within nine with 32 seconds remaining but no closer as the Grizzlies once again ended the half by converting four free throw attempts to close out their eighth win of the year by double-digits.
Finishing with a 35-33 rebounding advantage, Cloud County was unable to overcome 15 turnovers that led to 13 points for Butler as CCCC was only able to turn 14 Grizzly turnovers into five points of their own. Both Butler and the T-Birds scored 24 points in the paint with the largest difference in the game coming from beyond the arc with Butler outscoring Cloud County 21-12 from three.
Scoring a game-high 18 points was Fall with 11 of his points coming in the first half while
Ja'ron Briggs Jr. scored 12 points and had five rebounds. For the first time all season, sophomore
Cheikh Sow was held scoreless after going zero-for-six from the field while grabbing eight total rebounds and adding two steals. Butler was led by a team-high 17 points from AJ Williams while getting 14 points from Charles McClennahan Jr.
What's Next?
Cloud County's next two games will come against two of the bottom three teams in the KJCCC beginning on Saturday, January 20th when the T-Birds play host to Northwest Kansas Technical College for the first of two games in the regular-season with the Mavericks. Tip-off against NWKT is set for 4 PM as the Mavericks hold a 6-10 overall record with 2-8 mark in the KJCCC not including their game from Wednesday evening. At the time of this recap, Northwest Tech leads Pratt 70-65 with 4:26 remaining against the Beavers.
