TULSA, Okla. — Rallying from behind in the second half for the second night in a row at the Heartland Conference Championship, the Newman men's basketball team couldn't complete another comeback to record a trip to the tournament final, falling 95-87 to Dallas Baptist at the Union Multipurpose Activity Center Saturday night.
KEY SEQUENCE
Cortrael Colbert knocked down a pair of free throws to make it a two-point game at 84-82 with under a minute to go, but the No. 3 seed Patriots (22-8) got a slick dish from Joey Miller that turned into a three-point play for Patrick Burke to go ahead by five, and scored 11 of the final 16 points to build their lead back up over the seventh-seeded Jets (17-13).
HOW IT HAPPENED
-For the second night in a row, the Jets' opponent got off to a fast start, as DBU hit six of its first seven shots to jump out to a 14-6 lead. A Daniel Nwosu 3-pointer cut away at the margin for a moment with 16:07 left, but the Patriots pushed ahead to go up 17-9.
-A running layup out of Love and a pull-up 3-pointer from Jarvis Williams on two straight possessions suddenly made it a 17-14 game, and a drive by James Pegues made it a three-point game once more at 19-16 with 12:21 on the clock.
-Colbert added a lay-in to draw the Jets within one point at 19-18, but the Patriots went on another run from there, going on a 9-0 spurt to make it a 10-point game and extending it as high as 11 points at 36-25 with 4:44 left in the half.
-The Jets cut it to five points off of back-to-back 3-pointers out of Gavin Thurman and Daniel Nwosu with 2:24 left and again on a Colbert layup at the 1:15 mark before the Patriots stretched it out to a nine-point lead at the break.
-Newman was able to trim the lead back to five early in the second half, but then watched as DBU was able to boost the margin into the double digits and as high as 17 at 66-49 with 9:08 on the clock before the Jets started creeping back into the game.
-Colbert and Nwosu each hit a 3-pointer around a pair of free throws from Kevin Bryant brought it back down to 11 points, and another Nwosu trey cut it back down to single digits at 74-65 with 5:13 to play. Thurman knocked down another off a feed from Colbert to make it a six-point deficit.
-Williams hit a pair of freebies to pull it to 79-75 as the clock moved under three minutes to play, and hit a 3-pointer on the next possession to make it four points once again. Colbert laid one in and Williams hit another big 3-pointer to make it 82-80 with 1:54 left.
NOTES
-Five different Jets scored in double figures, led by the senior Colbert, who hit 7-of-13 shots for 17 points. That matched his second-best scoring output of the season, while his top effort also came against the Patriots when he shot 7-of-12 and put up 18 in the one-point loss to DBU at home Feb. 13. Colbert also put up three rebounds, three assists, a block and a steal Saturday night.
-Seniors Love and Thurman also netted double-digit points, with Love hitting 7-of-10 shots for 16 and Thurman going for 12 points, four rebounds and two assists. Nwosu had his second straight game of hot shooting beyond the arc, hitting 5-of-7 for 15 points. Williams knocked down 4-of-10 from deep and finished with 16.
