IIt was a matchup between the No. 3 and No. 4 in the MIAA conference on Saturday at MSSU as the Missouri South men faced Emporia State and it turned out to be a contest between the top two teams in the conference as the Hornets outscored the Lions 83-79 in overtime.
After leading by as many as 15, MSSU (11-5, 7-3 MIAA) saw its lead disappear with about eight minutes remaining in the game. Atavian Butler scored his only two points of the game for the Hornets to tie it at 58 apiece on a backtracking layup.
“Down the stretch, it seemed like we couldn’t stop,” said junior guard Vinson Sigmon Jr. “We just didn’t have enough snaps to respond to, which is a growing lesson.”
About 30 seconds later, ESU took their first lead on a 3-pointer by Kaden Evans to make it 61-58.
Over the next three and a half minutes, the Lions held the Hornets scoreless to complete a 6-0 run and take a 64-61 lead with less than four minutes to go. Christian Bundy scored four of those six points and two of them came on dunks.
But Emporia (14-3, 8-3 MIAA) wouldn’t go away. Down 71-68, after a tough layup by Winston Dessesow, ESU’s Owen Long drilled a step-back 3-pointer to force overtime.
“We just lost focus,” MSSU head coach Sam McMahon said. “When we missed, they would get offensive rebounds. Thanks to them, (Emporia State) are well trained and are a very good team. To beat a good team you have to take care of the boards and you can’t turn the ball around. We started turning it around late.”
Sigmon Jr. began overtime by capitalizing on a midrange jumper to put his team ahead 73-71. But then the Hornets scored seven straight points for a 78-73 lead. Every time the Lions tried to answer after that, Long would add two free throws to keep the gap and ultimately clinch the win.
“With every failure, that gives you an opportunity to grow,” Bundy said. “Adversity is not the end of the line. … We will focus more on defense. We have to be more focused mentally towards the end of the stretch of games and figure out how to win these types of games.”
Sigmon Jr. added that since this is the team’s first back-and-forth game down the stretch, he believes they will learn how to better close out these situations. He hopes they can do it by controlling the game better and doing what they want to do.
“L stands for lessons, not losses, so we will bounce back from this for sure,” he said.
Bundy and Sigmon Jr. believe that some of the lessons learned will help prepare them for other top teams in the MIAA.
“With teams at the top of the league we have to make every possession count,” Bundy said. “Everything matters when it comes down to the end like today.”
Coach McMahon added that the conference is “the best D2 conference in the country.
Long finished with 25 points to lead all scorers. Alijah Comithier added 23 points and eight rebounds. Others in double figures were Peyton Rogers-Schmidt with 12 points and Evans with 11. Rogers-Schmidt grabbed nine rebounds to lead the team.
“He’s a great player,” McMahon said of Long. “He is difficult to protect. He can make you swing. He can make you dance. He scored 25 points but on 19 shots, so Vinson (Sigmon Jr.) didn’t do a bad job with him.”
Southern also had four players scoring in double digits. Sigmon Jr. led the way with 21 points, 15 in the first half. Dessesow added 14, Taggart chipped in 13 and Sam Thompson rounded out 10. Thompson also had eight rebounds. Bundy led the team in rebounding with 10 and added nine points.
Long drew a lot of attention from MSSU in the second half and in overtime. He was fouled five times and made eight free throws. Six of the tries came in the bonus period.
The Lions committed 21 total fouls and saw Dessesow and Taggart foul out. Bundy committed four fouls himself.
The turnover battle also provided a difference in the stat book. MSSU’s 17 turnovers led to 24 ESU points, while the Hornets’ seven turnovers only converted to nine points by the Lions. ESU won the second chance points 20-8.
MSSU led 13-4 and then 22-7 when they used the early momentum to take a 38-29 lead at intermission.
McMahon noted that the lack of ball movement could have changed things on offense. But neither the players nor McMahon were worried about offense. They see the end result by resorting to defense.
Emporia had a couple of plays that acted as momentum in the second half. Both came from Rogers-Schmidt. The 6-foot-7 sophomore forward smashed through the glass as a shot attempt went up. He timed it perfectly and drove it home over the MSSU defenders to bring his team within seven at 41-34.
Rogers-Schmidt did it again with less than three minutes to go when he caught the ball over the rim and homed it to bring his team within one this time at 66-65.
This loss ends the Lions’ seven-game winning streak. The streak began on December 8 when they defeated No. 6 Central Oklahoma on the road. Now, they look to get back to their winning ways on Wednesday when they travel to Tahlequah, Oklahoma, to meet the Northeastern State University RiverHawks.
“When you have setbacks, when you have failures, those failures can take you places you can’t go without them,” McMahon said. “We have to learn from it, grow from it, and continue to improve it and use it for fuel.”
Source: news.google.com