MCC men drop third straight game at home

The McCook Community College men’s basketball team lost their third straight game at home Tuesday dropping a 79-75 decision to Dodge City Community College. This is also the third loss by single digits this season.

“It’s the same song and dance right now, we had 25 turnovers and gave up 11 offensive rebounds,” said MCC Coach Jacob Brandl. “You’re not going to win any college basketball games doing that.”

MCC also lost 7-0 sophomore center Noah Boyed who went down in the lane with five seconds left in the game and was in obvious pain and had to be helped to the locker room with a lower body injury.

“There was a lot of contact, it’s hard to tell what happened, but we’ll ice his knee tonight and try to get the swelling down and probably do an MRI and hope it’s not something serious, and that we can get him back,” said Brandl.

It was turnovers that set the tone early as the Conquistadores capitalized on early Indian miscues to lead 19-10 at the 11:48 mark of the first half. MCC turned the ball over 14 times in the first 20 minutes but managed to cut the gap to 21-17 with 8:16 left in the half and tied the game late with a 3-pointer from sophomore Trey Summers (Greeley, Colo.) to tie the game at 37 but Dodge City came back with their own 3-pointer at the buzzer to take a 40-37 lead at intermission.

“Transition was an issue for us all game – like at the end of the half, Trey hit that 3 to tie it up and we just don’t run back and get matched up in transition and they hit one to put them up at halftime,” Brandl said.

Dodge City took command of the game as the second half went along and led 71-64 with 5:02 left in the game when CC went on a 9-0 run with 3-pointers from Summers and sophomore Zeki Cavli (Bodrum, Turkey) to make it a 73-71 MCC lead with 2:45 left.

Down the stretch, MCC was unable to make the defensive stops and offensive execution as Dodge City’s Emery Chevalier hit a 3-pointer with 1:19 left to put the Conquistadores in the lead for good.

MCC shot 46 percent from the field in both halves, went six of 15 from the 3-point line (40 percent) and made 19 of 28 free throws (67.9 percent) but the key stat was the 25 turnovers.

“We have got to figure out ways to keep those turnovers down because at the end of the day we shot 46 percent from the field and held them to 40 percent, but they took 15 more shots that we did,” said Brandl. “That’s a ridiculous number.”

Dodge City shot 40.6 percent from the field, went 12 of 30 from distance (40 percent) and 11 of 22 at the line (50 percent). The Conquistadores were outrebounded 39-35 but held an 11-6 edge on offensive rebounds.

“We’re beating ourselves and losing basketball games because of what we are doing,” Brandl said. “We’ve got to figure out ways to get better in practice. We’re just talented enough to keep us in games.”

Summers led MCC with 18 points and tied for a team-high nine rebounds. He went two-for-three from the arc and made six of eight free throws. Cavli went three-for-three from the 3-point line and scored 15 points. Sophomore Martel Evans (Omaha Creighton Prep) scored 14 points with five rebounds. Sophomore Ty Foster (Bronx, N.Y.) scored 13 points.

Boyed, who on Monday signed his letter of intent to play with Baylor next year, finished the game with 13 points and nine rebounds.

“If Noah’s out for any length of time, that’s where someone else has to step up,” said Brandl. “Noah’s carrying us in a lot of spots and we have to get other guys to step up and fill that void.”

This was the sixth straight road game to start the season for Dodge City. The Conquistadores go to 2-4 but three of those losses came in an opening week trip to Midland, Texas with losses to No. 7 Midland and No. 3 Odessa as well as Howard College, a team receiving votes for the NJCAA Top 25. Last weekend DCCC beat Otero then lost to Trinidad.

MCC falls to 1-4 and will play their final home game of the semester Saturday when they face 2-1 Northeast Community College (Norfolk) in a men’s only game at 3 p.m. at the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center.

“Back to the drawing board, we’re going to watch some film and figure some stuff out and keep getting better,” said Brandl. “Northeast is going to come in and play hard... we’re getting everybody’s best shot, we can’t be shocked that teams come in here and play like that.”

Up-to-date information about MCC basketball including schedules, statistics, rosters and photos can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com