Box Score
CARROLLTON, Ga. - Turnovers and bench play from the home team cost the No. 14 Delta State University men's basketball team a conference win on the road. The Statesmen fell to the University of West Georgia 76-73 at The Coliseum on Thursday, Feb. 6.
"Any loss is a tough loss, but what hurts the most about tonight is our lack of execution. It should have never came down to the end," said head coach
Jim Boone. "You know, 17 turnovers, and particularly the back free-throw line and out turnovers we had, that led to layups on the other end, you just don't have a defense for that. They scored 25 points off of our 17 turnovers. You're talking about a third of the points they scored, we handed to them, with no defense to stop them because they were turnovers that occurred between half court and the free-throw line extended. You cannot win basketball games playing in that manner."
The Wolves (14-7, 6-6) only forced seven more turnovers than the Statesmen (18-3, 11-2), but DSU only scored 12 points off the free chances. UWG also got 30 points from its bench to Delta's seven.
Contrary to the second half of the game, to open the action Delta State came out firing on all cylinders. The Statesmen led on the scoreboard the entire first half, shooting 46 percent from the field, going 11-of-24. Freshman
Devin Schmidt
led all scorers with eight points.
Willie Readus and
Mike Washington both had six and DSU had a 32-29 lead at the break.
UWG didn't waste any time, opening up the second half with a run that put them in control of the game only about a minute in. The score was tied or the Wolves held the lead until the 13:48 mark when Readus used a layup to give the Statesmen the lead back.
"I really felt that our team did a good job of battling back and putting ourselves in a position to win the game, and then we couldn't get a stop," Boone said. "We overcame the turnovers and what have you, and we got down to that last two minutes and change and we just could not get a stop. They got a couple of tough buckets. I thought we defended a couple of them really well. Give them credit for making a couple of tough shots, but we've got to be better than that."
Delta held the lead for about two minutes at that point in the second half, but another surge by the home team put West Georgia back on top. The Wolves hung on until a
Jack Madgen 3-pointer put DSU up 60-59 at the 6:13 mark. UWG answered with a 3-pointer and the battle continued.
Readus put Delta up by four with about four minutes to play and
Cornel Knight hit a crucial 3-pointer with 2:29 to play, but West Georgia just kept coming back. Schmidt and Mike Weems hit jumpers in the final seconds to keep the Statesmen in it, but the Wolves hit their free throws when they needed to and Schmidt couldn't connect on a 3-pointer as time expired to tie the game.
Both teams shot about 58 percent in the second half but West Georgia held on for the 76-73 win over Delta State.
Readus scored 19 points in the second half to finish with 25 points and 15 rebounds. He fought for everything he got in the paint.
"They sent everybody in the paint, and we still got buckets, but we tried to do things we haven't done all year long, or at least not for a while," Boone said. "We tried to score out of triple teams. We tried to drive it through two or three guys. How many point blank layups did we have that we missed, in the totality of this game? Several. It's something that's very disappointing, that we let this one get away. I thought at the beginning it was very winnable. There was some really bad clock management at the end. We did not deserve to win the game, the way we played, in terms of turning the ball over. You can't guard 2-on-0, 3-on-0, and those are turnovers we have not committed, particularly in that manner, for a long time."
Schmidt contributed 14 points and Madgen had 11, including two 3-pointers. Knight and Washington finished with eight points and Weems had seven.
The Statesmen will look to bounce back on Saturday, Feb. 8 against Shorter University in Rome, Ga. The second half of the road swing for Delta State is scheduled to tip off at 3 p.m. CST.
