Madonna basketball team falls at NAIA tournament
The Madonna University men's basketball team - making its inaugural appearance in the NAIA Division II National Tournament - met its match Wednesday in Southern Oregon.
The No. 18-seeded Raiders punched their ticket into Friday's Round of 16 with a convincing 83-66 opening-round victory over No. 14-seeded MU at the College of the Ozarks' (Mo.) Keeter Gymnasium.
Southern Oregon was led by sophomore forward Eric Thompson, a former walk-on from Oregon State and minor league baseball player in the LA Dodgers farm system.
The 6-foot-8 Thompson scored tournament-best 30 points, going 5-for-6 from beyond the arc.
He's a great player and I thought we didn't do enough to slow him down,'' MU coach Noel Emenhiser said. Once he got a rhythm, he was hitting shots - tough shots, open shots - he made everything. But we kind of let him get away from us and get open a lot more than we would have liked to.''
Kyle Tedder also drained five three-pointers en route to a 20-point effort, while David Sturner added 10 points and six rebounds.
Tied at 11, Southern Oregon opened up a 25-14 lead behind its three-point shooting, draining three during a three-minute stretch in the first half.
The Raiders led 51-38 at the break, while shooting 50 percent (7-of-14) from beyond the arc.
Southern Oregon (25-9) put the game out of reach with an 8-2 run early in the second half to extend its lead to over 20. They limited MU to just 39 percent shooting over the final 20 minutes.
I don't know if there was one single thing that was missing,'' Emenhiser said. We ran into a style that we weren't real comfortable defending. And once they got comfortable, they really got into a rhythm and they were able to pick us apart on our defensive end. For awhile we traded baskets, but we knew it wasn't going to be a formula for success against a good offensive team like that. Once they got comfortable, they were really able to put up the points quickly.''
The Raiders shot 46 percent for th! e game and made 11 three-pointers, shooting an identical 46 percent from beyond the arc.
Madonna shot 47 percent for the game (27-of-58) and was led in scoring by junior guards Bobby Naubert (Livonia Stevenson) and Travis Schuba with 17 points apiece, while Fred Williams added 10.
Naubert, the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference Player of the Year, also had seven assists and five rebounds as MU ends its most successful season in school history a 25-9 record.
They message was we were clearly disappointed about the way we performed tonight,'' Emenhiser said. I know everybody had a lot invested and really wanted to play well today. It wasn't a matter of not caring enough, or not preparing. For whatever reason, it just didn't click today.
But we have a lot to be proud of. We're taking steps in the right direction as a program and these guys have invested a lot in themselves of changing what Madonna basketball means. We should all be proud of that and understand to play at the level of competition that you see out here that we still have a long way to go.''
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