LIBERTY, Mo. — Gavin Thurman turned in his second straight 27-point game, James Pegues offered a double-double and Daniel Nwosu a fourth consecutive double-digit scoring effort off the bench as the Newman men's basketball team held off a stiff challenge from William Jewell in a 77-76 victory Saturday afternoon.
Thurman, a senior, once again shot better than 50 percent from the floor (10-of-19) and hit half of his 3-point attempts (4-of-8) to lead the Jets (7-1) with 27 points. He also added eight rebounds for the second straight game. Pegues netted his first double-double of his senior season with 13 points and 10 rebounds, and Nwosu collected 11 points in 18 minutes. Senior Jalen Love scored all eight of his points in the second half, and sophomore Kevin Bryant pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds.
Thurman started off 2-for-2 from the field to tie things up at 4-4 early, and Kevin Bryant hit a layup for the first of 11 lead changes in the game, making it 6-4 Jets just over four minutes into the game. That advantage lasted only 30 seconds though, and even after a Nwosu 3-pointer tied things up at 9-all, the Cardinals (2-5) scored to go up at the 14:01 mark, and held the lead nearly the rest of the first half.
The Jewell lead bounced between four and six for much of the final 14 minutes of the half, with a fastbreak bucket from Pegues, and 3-pointer from Pegues and a triple from Thurman each cutting the margin to two points at times. The largest Cardinal lead was 34-26 with 2:24 to go, but Newman took control over those final 144 seconds, scoring nine straight points to take the lead into intermission.
A Taylor Schieber bucket cut the lead to six, and the Jets swarmed for seven points over the final 22 seconds. Thurman split a pair of free throws, then a Bryant steal led to a Nwosu triple, and Schieber poked the ball away from the Cardinals and finished the play himself with a lay-in, also earning and hitting the and-1 to make it 35-30 Jets at the break.
The first four minutes of the second half was the very definition of back-and-forth, as the lead changed hands six times, with neither team going up by more than one point. Thurman, who would score 18 of his 27 after halftime, netted all six of Newman's points over that span. A pair of free throws from Nwosu would give the Jets the slimmest of breathing room at 43-40, and Love hit another to push the advantage to four. Jewell managed to draw even and go up by one on a 3-pointer, but that lead lasted just 17 seconds, as Thurman buried a triple with 13:06 to play.
The Jets would not trail again, although the hosts were able to tie things up two more times and never trailed by more than seven. A 3-pointer from Nwosu made it a four-point lead with 11:22 to go, and a three-point play from senior Cortrael Colbert followed by a layup by junior Jarvis Williams made it a 62-55 game just under the nine minute mark. The Cardinals managed to score seven straight to draw even at 65-all, but a Pegues lay-in a minute later handed the lead back to the Jets, and Thurman nailed another trey to make things more comfortable.
Love used his only two baskets of the game in big moments, with a 3-pointer with 2:15 left and a basket with just 1:01 remaining both taking the lead from one to a more manageable situation. They were the last two field goals of the game for the Jets, who were able to hit enough free throws to hold off the Cardinals.
Newman pulled in 44 rebounds, including 14 offensive, and turned the ball over just eight times. They forced 13 turnovers out of the Cardinals, and turned those giveaways into a whopping 26 points.
The Jets closed out the nonconference portion of their schedule on a four-game winning streak, and travel to St. Edward's Thursday and Texas-Permian Basin Saturday to begin Heartland Conference play.
