Cougars fall to Utah Valley
Barton County Community College suffered its second straight defeat of the season Friday afternoon as the Cougars dropped their second game in St. George, Utah. Barton County fell to Utah Valley in the loser's bracket contest, 80-74, sending the Cougars to the 7th place contest against Victor Valley (Calif.).
Cougars fall to Utah Valley
Barton County Community College suffered its second straight defeat of the season Friday afternoon as the Cougars dropped their second game in St. George, Utah. Barton County fell to Utah Valley in the loser's bracket contest, 80-74, sending the Cougars to the 7th place contest against Victor Valley (Calif.).
The Cougars, who ran off 11 straight wins to start the season and carried a No. 2 national ranking to the Dixie State College New Year's Tournament, now fall to 11-2 on the season. Utah Valley, which has spent much of the season in the Top 20, improves to 10-3.
Highlights
The back-and-forth contest featured 18 lead changes before Utah Valley finally took the lead for good with just more than two minutes to play in the contest. The Wolverines scored seven straight points late to turn a 73-72 lead with 1:30 to play into an 80-72 lead before a Jason Carter basket for Barton accounted for the final margin. During that time Utah Valley hit 7-of-10 free throws.
Free throws told a big story as Barton County hit a miserable 13-of-33 from the charity stripe for 39 percent. Utah Valley connected on 22-of-37. Carter led the Cougars with 19 points, followed by Robert Whaley with 11. Whaley also added four blocked shots to run his season total to 52. Omari Westley and Jesse McClung each added 10. Seth Scott and John Hill led Utah Valley with 19 and 18 while Reese Phillips added 14 off the bench.
Next Up
Barton County will play Victor Valley (Calif.) for 7th place at the tournament tomorrow at 1 p.m. CST.
Coach Ryan Wolf comments
"We didn't make free throws. Our guys have got to step to the line and make free throws. You go 13-for-33, miss 20 free throws, and its amazing how we are still in the game.
"Elisha Fields and Nouha Diakite are really coming along. They are giving us some good minuets, that's a positive. They got other people involve and are rebounding well.
"This prepares us good for the Jayhawk. They are a good team they did some good things on defense. Still we got the ball where we wanted to down low, but you've got to make free throws. Defensively we did a pretty good job.
"Offensively we shoot 28-for-71 and 13-for-33. That's my job. I have to do a little bit better job of getting them prepared."