WICHITA, Kan. — Putting up impressive showings the two times it was challenged on the scoreboard, the Newman men's basketball team ran away with a 76-58 victory over Oklahoma Christian Thursday night as the Jets ran their winning streak to three straight Heartland Conference games.
KEY SEQUENCE
Seeing their opponent cut the lead to just one possession for the first time in nearly 15 minutes, the Jets (14-9, 7-8 Heartland), bouncing out to a 20-4 run that lasted seven minutes through the middle of the second half. The heart of that stretch saw Newman score on four straight possessions against the Eagles (6-17, 3-12 Heartland), with James Pegues hitting a shot, Jarvis Williams nailing back-to-back 3-pointers and Daniel Nwosu grabbing an offensive rebound and eventually draining a trey to make it a 16-point game.
HOW IT HAPPENED
-The Jets tore out to another fast start, with back-to-back jumpers from Pegues and Gavin Thurman making it 4-2 in favor of the guests, and a Taylor Schieber bucket and a 3-pointer from Pegues making it 9-4 with less than three minutes gone, and a shot from deep out of Schieber making it 12-6 with 16:50 left in the opening half.
-OC took just its third lead of the game after a 13-5 run to make it 19-17 with 10:15 left in the period. A Jalen Love 3-pointer just 14 seconds handed the lead back to Newman, and it would hold the advantage for the final 30 minutes. Williams converted a three-point play on the next possession, and jumpers from Love and Kevin Bryant capped off a 10-2 spurt from the Jets to take control.
-Schieber hit two 3-pointers and Bryant one over a two-minute span, and a pair of free throws from Williams followed by a dish to Thurman for a basket stretched the lead the whole way to 40-31 with just under a minute left in the first half. A bucket from the Eagles cut that lead to seven as the teams went to the break.
-Pegues bumped that lead back out to nine with the first field goal of the second half, but the hosts collected the next six points, giving them the first of two straight possessions that saw them cut the lead to one basket at 42-39 and then 44-41 with 15:26 left to play.
-Two free throws from Nwosu and then a jumper out of the junior less than a minute later kickstarted the big run for the Jets, who took the game under control over the next six-plus minutes, going from up by three to up 64-45 after a Love basket.
-While Newman slowed down a bit coming off that big run, a Cortrael Colbert 3-pointer followed by a Travis Matthews jumper gave the Jets their biggest lead of the game at 21 points with the score 70-49 at the 6:43 mark, and a Colbert bucket and two Easton Julian free throws made it 21 points again just over four minutes later.
NOTES
-Newman secured its third winning streak of at least three games so far this season, and the first during its Heartland Conference schedule. Saturday's game against Dallas Baptist kicks of a slate of three straight games against the top three teams in the conference.
-It was the third straight time the Jets shot over 40 percent, going 28-of-61 (45.9 percent) from the field. They also shot well again from beyond the arc, hitting on 12-of-28 (42.9 percent), the second straight time — and only two times all season — the Jets put up at least 25 3-pointers and converted at least 40 percent.
-Schieber led five Jets who scored in double figures, going 5-of-9 from the field for 13 points. Pegues shot at least 50 percent for the second straight game and finished with 11, while Williams was 2-of-3 from deep and 3-of-3 from the line to put up 11.
-Love and Nwosu each finished with 10 points and also combined for seven rebounds and three assists. Bryant hit 2-of-3 from the field and pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds — while facing off with the conference's leading rebounder in OC's John Moon — to reach double-digit boards for the second time this season.
WHAT'S NEXT
The Jets head home for a Saturday afternoon game against first-place Dallas Baptist, winners of 11 of its past 12 games.
