GREAT BEND, Kan. – Giving number three nationally-ranked Barton Community College all they could handle and then some, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team saw a Wednesday night contest with neither team holding a lead of more than seven end in a 71-65 road defeat to the host Cougars inside the Barton Gymnasium in Great Bend, Kansas on January 31st.
Falling to 15-6 overall and 10-5 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference, Cloud County drops their fifth game of the year to a ranked foe while BCC picks up win number 20 to improve to 20-1 overall and 14-1 in the KJCCC.
Taking on a Cougar squad that entered the contest on a 10-game winning streak Cloud County did not back away from a battle in the early going as an
Abdoulaye Fall made three staked the T-Birds to a slim advantage over the first three-plus minutes of action before seeing BCC take their first lead of the game on a made Cooper Jackson trey with 16:49 left in the first half. Following up the made three with a conventional three-point play, Barton doubled up CCCC 8-4 before giving up a made three by
Ja'ron Briggs Jr. to bring the T-Birds back within one for the first of three separate occasions in the opening 10 minutes of play. Facing a 17-16 deficit with 9:47 remaining in the opening period, Cloud County reclaimed the lead with a
Cheikh Sow steal and dunk to grab an 18-17 lead that forced Barton to call a timeout to try and keep CCCC from grabbing momentum.
Trading the lead back-and-forth, BCC and Cloud County traded the next eight points of the game which led to two ties and four lead changes with the T-Birds taking a 22-21 lead on a Briggs Jr. free throw with 5:12 left in the half despite going over five minutes without a made field goal. Seeing Barton reclaim the lead at 23-22 on a pair of Mozae Downing-Rivers free throws, CCCC was quick to retake the lead once more on a made
Isaiah Sy triple before getting an
Emmanuel Manyuon three to take their largest lead of the game at 29-25 with 2:37 remaining before halftime with their shooting starting to heat up from beyond the arc. The Cougars closed out the half by scoring three free throws on three separate trips down the floor with the final 4:04 of the first half going without a made field goal to put the score at 29-28 in favor of CCCC heading into the intermission break.
Free throws continued to be the preferred method of scoring into the second half with Barton scoring five of their first seven points of the half from the charity stripe while allowing just one made three by Sy to flip the score back in favor of the Cougars by a 35-32 margin before a Lajae Jones jumper in the paint to put BCC up five with 17:17 left in the game. The lead for Barton grew to six just two minutes later as BCC managed to outscore Cloud County 3-2 with points beginning to become hard to come by as fouls were piling up on both benches to put each squad in the bonus early in the half. Battling back from a six-point deficit to tie things up with a pair of free throws by Briggs Jr., Cloud County saw Barton reclaim the lead with two free throws of their own to kick off a 7-0 run that gave BCC their largest lead of the game at 52-45 with 11:10 left.
Trying to make another run to get back in the game, CCCC managed to close within three with just over nine minutes remaining before again getting within a single possession with 6:45 left in the half as Barton seemingly had a response for each run made by the T-Birds. With Briggs Jr. starting to take over offensively by scoring nine straight points Cloud County points to get CCCC within two at 60-58, the Cougars pushed their lead right back out to five with a made three by Ring Malith to keep the momentum from going in favor of the T-Birds. Down the stretch, Cloud County was able to pull within three on two separate occasions with a pair of Sow free throws and a layup for Manyuon keeping CCCC within striking distance as Barton proved to be too much offensively in the waning minutes to hang on for the win.
Holding Barton nearly 14 points under their season average, Cloud County finished the game with a higher field goal percentage than the Cougars by shooting 40.0 percent (20-of-50) from the floor and 29.6 percent (eight-of-27) from three while going 17-of-23 (73.9 percent) from the free-throw line. BCC meanwhile went 22-of-58 (37.9 percent) from the field and five-of-16 (31.3 percent) from three to go along with a 22-of-32 (68.6 percent) effort from the charity stripe as both teams scored 11 points off turnovers and had seven second-chance points. Barton held a 40-33 advantage in rebounds including a 15-8 advantage in offensive rebounds while forcing CCCC into 17 turnovers.
Finishing with a game-high 19 was Briggs Jr. with 13 coming in the second half to go along with six rebounds and two assists while
Ian Lavalaye had 13 points off the bench in 17 minutes of action. Reigning KJCCC Division I Men's Basketball Player of the Week
Abdoulaye Fall was limited to 10 points and four rebounds as no other T-Bird had more than nine points on the night. Barton had four starters reach double-figures including a game-high 19 from Jones who added four rebounds in 22 minutes of action.
What's Next?
A battle of fifth-place teams in the KJCCC will take place on Saturday, February 3rd with Cloud County hitting the road to take on a surging Garden City Community College at 4 PM inside Conestoga Arena in Garden City. Winners of four of their last five games, Garden City is averaging 95 points per game over their past five games including a 98-76 road win at Pratt Wednesday evening. Since December 9th, Garden City has dropped just two games, with losses coming at home against Barton and at Hutchinson as part of an 8-2 mark to improve to 14-7 overall. In this season's earlier matchup between teams, Cloud County came away with a 66-54 home win over the Broncbusters while holding GCCC to their second-lowest scoring output of the year.
