Fifty fouls and seventy-six free throws were not in the Cougars favor Saturday on the road as the 22nd ranked Barton Community College men's basketball team went down 85-77 at 11th ranked Coffeyville Community College.
As foul problems mounted for Barton in the final twelve minutes, a shorter lineup was a tough match-up against the Red Ravens in getting consistent inside buckets or trips to the line while the Cougars lacked a consistent offensive punch throughout the contest.
The loss drops Barton to 3-2 in conference and 8-3 overall while Coffeyville improves to 4-2 in league and 10-2 on the year.
The Cougars wind up its tough two-game road swing on Wednesday in a 8:00 p.m. tilt at Cloud County Community College as the T-Birds were knocked from the league's top spot in a Saturday loss at Pratt Community College to enter the contest at 4-1 in the Jayhawk and 8-3 overall.
Cougar Downing led Barton with 17 points, Mozae Downing-Rivers contributed 15 points, and despite foul problems Joseph Locandro posted his 7th double-double of the season on a 13 point and 13 rebound performance.
Coffeyville's Landon Glasper led all players with 21 points, none larger than a guarded elbow jumper under a minute to play for a final dagger pushing the lead to eight.
Barton shot just 38.1% on the night including 8-of-30 from beyond the arc and 21-of-33 from the free throw line.
The Red Ravens were 54.7% from the field and 4-of-11 from deep, scoring at-will inside and adding twelve of their last twenty-six points from the free throw line, finishing the game at 23-for-43.
Hannes Saar's triple opened the afternoon scoring and after a Red Raven bucket, Barton rattled off the next seven as Downing's first of two treys within four minutes put the Cougars up 10-2.
Downing's second triple and layups by Cooper Jackson and Christian Bowen-Webb stretched the lead to twelve at the 15:39 mark.
Barton's offense began to stutter as Coffeyville began to heat up, canning a pair of treys in a 17-4 stretch for its first lead at 24-23 with 7:15 left in the half.
Howard Johnson, who connected on a pair of triples on the day, hit the first to put the Cougars back in front as the teams would battle back and forth for the next five minutes until Amiri Ndayisaba gave Barton its final lead of the half as Coffeyville scored the last five for a 40-38 halftime edge.
The Cougars outscored the Red Ravens by four for a 46-44 edge four minutes into the final period. From there the teams went toe-to-toe for the next six minutes until Coffeyville grabbed four straight for a 59-55 advantage at the midpoint media timeout.
Downing's jumper would close the gap to one but a five point spurt, three coming from the Red Raven free throw line led to separation as just enough trips to the line and Barton coming up empty pushed the margin to fourteen with under five to play.
A 6-0 run capped by Johnson's three-pointer cut the gap to six with 1:48 left, and again at six following Downing-Rivers' pair of charity tosses, but Glaspers' jumper all but sealed Barton's fate with 45 seconds left.