NJC men hit late shot to down MCC 78-77

STERLING, Colo. – Trailing by a point with 15.7 seconds left in the game, Northeastern Junior College’s Quis Davis took the in-bounds play, ran the clock, drove the lane and made a layup with 3.5 seconds left to give NJC a 78-77 win Saturday over McCook Community College.

MCC was able to in-bound the ball, get past half-court and hoist a long jumper with time expiring that missed to give NJC it’s sixth straight home win at the Bank of Colorado Events Center, and their eight win at home in nine games.

“I thought that we played a very good game,” said MCC Coach Dillon Hargrove. “It’s always tough to win on the road.”

The Indians had the opportunity to extend a 77-76 lead at the free-throw line 19.7 remaining but sophomore Mo Diao missed the front end of a one-and-one chance, and the Plainsmen grabbed the rebound and advanced the ball to their end of the court with 15.7 seconds left and called a time-out to set up the final play.

Throughout the game there were 17 lead changes and the game was tied six times. NJC’s largest lead was by three points and came with 8:47 left in the game.

“Overall I was proud of the guys for having control of majority of the game,” said Hargrove.

MCC got off to a strong start and led by nine points in the first 7:04 of the game and held a 41-35 lead at halftime.

“The guys had a very good game plan going into it,” said Hargrove. “I thought we had a couple calls go against us late in the game.

The Indians shot 42.6 percent from the field, made seven of 20 triples (35 percent) and went 24 of 28 from the free-throw line (85.7 percent). MCC forced 21 turnovers and scored 20 points off turnovers.

Freshman Djibril Diawara (Aulnay-sous-Bois, France) led the offense with 21 points which includes three of 12 from the 3-point line and eight of nine from the free-throw line. Sophomore Nate Coley (Little Rock, Ark.) scored 19 points and went nine-for-10 from the free-throw line.

Freshman Alier Alier (Bor, South Sudan) scored 14 points and led the Tribe with seven boards. Diao scored 13 points.

“We had guys step up off the bench and I thought Nate, Mo, and Djibril all had very good games,” said Hargrove.

Off the bench freshman Isayah Pankey (freshman, Dallas, Texas) scored six points and sophomore Vladimir Brkovic (Uzice, Serbia) put in four.  Sophomore Luke Sinisa (Auckland, North Island New Zealand) grabbed six rebounds and freshman Sofiane Benragba (Montpellier, France) had four.

The Plainsmen shot 52.5 percent from the field, five of 13 from the 3-point line (38.5 percent) and 11 of 13 from the line (84.6 percent). NJC outrebounded MCC 34-28 and had a 29-10 advantage in bench scoring.

Northeastern improves to 13-8 and 5-2 in the region.

Saturday’s game marks the half-way point of the 14-game Region IX South schedule. The Indians fall to 3-4 and 13-10 overall

“We play Lamar on Wednesday at home and we hope to have a good crowd and feed off that energy at the Graff Events Center,” said Hargrove.

MCC will return to the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center on Wednesday and Saturday. On Wednesday MCC will host Lamar at 7:30 p.m. then hosts Southeast Community College Saturday at 4 p.m.

Up-to-date information about MCC women’s basketball including livestream links for home games, schedule, statistics, rosters, photos and more can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com