FULTON, Mo.—The William Woods men's basketball team will look to halt its three game losing streak and pull an upset in its first American Midwest Conference game on the 2013-14 season against preseason No. 4 ranked Columbia College. Tip-off will start at 7:30 p.m. at Anderson Arena.
The Owls (1-6), are coming off a 94-86 loss on the road against Graceland University on Monday night. The team trailed 50-31 at the half against the Yellow Jackets and what did them in was having 17 turnovers, while only forcing seven GU turnovers, giving them 10 extra possessions in the half.
In the second half, the Owls played much better, only having four turnovers, shooting 47 percent from the field and 50 percent from the three point arc. WWU was able to cut the deficit down to five points at 78-73 with 5:51 remaining after
Jayson Saldana knocked in a two pointer, but that would be as close as they would get, as Graceland was able to go on for the eight point win.
Jonathon Nutt had himself a career night, scoring 27 points on 8-for-18 shooting from the field.
Blake Burgess contributed 16 points (5-for-12), while
Patrick Lewis and
Nate Bitner had a nice game for the team off the bench, netting 12 and 11 points respectively.
"I am pleased they fought back and stayed with it," said head coach
Nick Totta. "We played with heart, but we need to work on making better decisions throughout the course of the game."
On offense, the Owls are led by Nutt averaging 19.6 points per game and shooting 45 percent from the floor. Burgess is off to a quick start as well, as the Jacksonville, Ill., native is putting up 15.4 points a game and knocking in a team high 78 percent of his free throw shots.
After back-to-back double-figure point totals, Bitner has moved his average up to 9.6 per game and is second on the team in rebounds with 35, trailing leader Burgess by just six.
These three players along with the rest of the Owls will need to have a strong game offensively and defensively against reigning AMC champions and No. 4 ranked Columbia College (6-0), who comes into the game against the Owls averaging 96 points per game and shooting an astounding 56 percent from the field, while holding its opponents to a mere 37 percent.
"It is important when you play a good team like this that you really execute and take care of the basketball," said Totta. "Defensively you have to work really hard and make them earn their buckets, because they are a very good shooting team and in those situations you want them to reduce their percentages," he added.
"An offense that puts up 96 points a game, you know they are going to go on a run and string together some buckets," said Totta. "We have to be ready to respond with a run of our own and not get out of our mentality defensively if they put a couple straight offensive possessions together," said Totta.
Getting off to a fast start in the first half for the Owls has been a work in progress thus far this season, as they have been outscored 316-264 in the first 20:00 minutes of play, but in the second half they are outscoring its opponents 324-307 after making adjustments at halftime.
Coach Totta knows how important it will be to get off to a quick start against a very good offense like Columbia and he believes the Owls can if they slow down their own offense. "We aren't executing very well offensively in the first half and we don't recognize going from primary to secondary situations right now," said Totta. "We are playing sped up on offense and we are rushing our shots, which allows the opposing teams to get long rebounds and put our defense at a disadvantage trying to rush back," he added.
"So if we can execute the way we have in the second half, start slowing down the offense and take better shots from the field, I feel we will have a better outcome in the game," said Totta.
The Cougars have 11 players shooting over 50 percent from the floor through six games, led by guard Devin Griffin, who comes off the bench averaging a team high 18 points per game. Another guard WWU will need to focus on will be this week's AMC Player of the Week in Derrick Dilworth, who is putting up 16.3 points per contest.
The duo has combined for 38 assists from the point, freeing up quality shots from the floor for the likes of senior forward Patric Massey, who is netting 67 percent (21-for-31) of his shots, for an average of 8.3 points a game.
The Owls will need to limit their turnovers and control the glass against the Cougars, which has been hard to come by for opponents who play CC, as they are outrebounding its opponents 240-191 and forcing 80 turnovers, however, the Owls have grabbed down 285 rebounds this season and have the size on the inside to match-up well against the Cougars.
Fans should stay updated on wwuowls.com tomorrow evening for a full recap and score from this conference showdown.
