GARDEN CITY, Kan. – Despite jumping out to a 13-2 advantage six minutes into the game and holding a 33-28 halftime lead, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team saw host Garden City Community College flip the script by shooting 46 percent from three in the second half to outscore the T-Birds 45-32 and hand CCCC a 73-65 defeat inside Conestoga Arena in Garden City, Kansas on Saturday, February 3rd.
Suffering their seventh loss of the year, Cloud County falls to 15-7 overall and 10-6 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference after being unable to secure a regular season sweep of the Broncbusters. GCCC claims sole possession of fifth place in the KJCCC over CCCC with the win while improving to 15-7 overall and 11-5 in the KJCCC.
With Garden City entering the game averaging 106 points per contest over their previous two games, Cloud County held GCCC scoreless for the first 3:17 of the game while scoring the first six points as part of a 13-2 run to open the contest and go up 11 with 13:44 left in the first half. Extending their lead to 13 at 17-4 on a made
Ja'ron Briggs Jr. layup with 11:35 left before halftime, Cloud County saw Garden City respond with a 13-2 run that was capped off by a trio of Elijah Roberts free throws after being fouled on a three-point attempt. Looking to protect their lead, CCCC's
Kyle McElroy drew a foul in the paint to get to the charity stripe and connect on both attempts to put the T-Birds back up two possessions at 21-17 with the lead for Cloud County hovering between one and four points for each of the next three minutes of play.
After a
Roy Aviv triple to turn a 23-22 advantage into a 26-22 lead for CCCC, the T-Birds saw sophomore
Ian Lavalaye score the next four points of the game to extend the lead back out to eight and eventually 10 as a 9-0 run made things 32-22 in favor Cloud County. Back-to-back triples by the Broncbusters with just over two minutes left in the first half allowed GCCC to pull back within four at 32-28 as just one point was scored in the final 2:04 of the first half coming on a Briggs Jr. free throw to give CCCC a five-point advantage at the break.
Just two points were scored by Cloud County in the opening five minutes of the second half as Briggs Jr. converted a layup attempt on the first offensive possession of the half for the T-Birds before seeing Garden City hit three of their first four three-point attempts to grab their first lead of the contest at 37-35. The streaky shooting Broncbuster squad that went 18-of-27 from three in their previous outing on Wednesday night at Pratt continued to fire away from deep and grow their lead to five at 45-40 with 12:43 remaining before seeing Cloud County hold them scoreless for a span of 4:23 to get back within a point following a made triple from
Emmanuel Manyuon.
A 7-0 GCCC run quickly pushed the Garden City lead back to eight at 52-44 with 7:30 left in the game as the Broncbusters eventually grew their lead to double digits at 57-46 with just over six minutes remaining. Manyuon and the T-Birds continued to battle and try to cut into the lead but saw Garden City take their largest lead of the contest at 64-50 with 4:49 left on a Braxton Jones jumper in the paint to put CCCC in a position of needing to score and get defensive stops heading into the final stretch of the game. Three-straight free throws by Cloud County cut into the Broncbuster lead slightly before seeing Garden City start to get to the free throw line and convert to keep their lead in double-digit territory as CCCC was unable to get back within single digits until a Manyuon layup with 1:31 remaining. Forcing a turnover on an offensive foul, Cloud County was unable to score on their next offensive possession which allowed Garden City to get the ball back and add a layup after bleeding nearly 20 seconds off the clock as the double-digit lead with less than a minute remaining proved to be too much for the T-Birds to overcome late.
Limited to just nine made field goals in the second half, Cloud County finished the game shooting 20-of-47 (42.6 percent) from the floor and six-of-17 (35.3 percent) from three in addition to having their third-worst performance at the free-throw line in 22 games this season (19-for-31, 61.3 percent). After holding the Broncbusters to a 33.3 percent (nine-of-27) field goal percentage in the first half, GCCC shot over 53 percent from the floor in the second half to finish the game 23-for-53 (43.4 percent) and nine-of-28 (32.1 percent) from three while outscoring Cloud County 17-12 in points off turnovers. CCCC held a 36-26 advantage in rebounds and outscored the Broncbusters 9-5 in second-chance points.
One of three players to score over 20 points in the contest, Manyuon led the T-Birds with a team-high and new career-high 21 points on seven-of-13 shooting and added five rebounds after getting the start for the first time since December 30th at Indian Hills. Briggs scored 10 points and had seven rebounds while
Cheikh Sow grabbed a team-best nine rebounds to go along with nine rebounds despite being in foul trouble throughout the game. Jones had a game-high 24 to lead Garden City while Brody Robinson followed up a 44-point outing against Pratt with 21 points and 10 assists.
What's Next?
Cloud County will look to turn things around at home on Wednesday, February 7th when they try to avenge an earlier season loss to Dodge City Community College. Tip-off is set for 8 PM from Arley Bryant Gymnasium against the Conquistadors who were 87-84 winners at home over Pratt Saturday afternoon. The previous matchup this season between CCCC and DCCC went into overtime, with Dodge City winning by a score of 89-87 on their home court.
