Northwestern State is one of the better rated teams in the conference and will be a tough matchup on the road. They are the 2nd best offense in the conference and they have a solid defense.
Jarryd Broermann, their SO SG is a highly rated player (at least for this conference,) and will be a tough guard for Czepil.
A very defensive first 5 minutes with it being 2-2 5 minutes in. However, it opened up a bit after that. 26-25, we are down at the half. Czepil is our leading scorer with 7. Our defense is being very tenacious, particularly on their star SG who is a good 3 point shooter and has drilled the 3 both times we've left him open.
With 2:05 to go, Newton with a 16 footer to put us up 60-59! A defensive stop leads to a fast break. Czepil is fouled on the fast break and hurts his knee
Swoger comes in to take the FT's and he misses them both
But, we get the offensive board and Bakari Lewis hits a little jumper in the lane. 62-59.
Their center gets baskets down low on their next 2 possessions to give them a 1 point lead with 35 seconds to go. Bose misses the shot with 4 seconds to go. They get the board. We foul but time runs out before we can get off a shot.
63-62 loss.
We each shot 34% this game. We outrebounded them 44-31 but it wasn't enough.
Czepil led our team with 17 points on 5 of 14 shooting, 2 of 10 from the arc.
Boyce had 13 points. Lloyd had 8 points and 17 boards along with 4 blocks. He also had 5 turnovers.
The news is good. Czepil just sprained his knee and will be DtD for 3-7 days. He'll play in our remaining games.
Feb 27, we host 14-9 SE Louisiana that blew us out by 30 a few weeks ago. This time they beat us 62-55. Czepil had 22 points and 8 boards. However, no one else had more than 6 points.
In-season recruiting just ended and it looks very bleak. There is a HUGE amount of competition for the 3 star players I'm going after and there is quite a bit for even the 2 star player I'm pursuing
Our next game is against 12-15 UTSA. I'll play that tomorrow and most likely finish the season tomorrow, unless this team does better in the tourney than I expect. Next year, unless we get 1 or 2 good shooters in the offseason, we are going to have to be a grind it out defensive oriented team that relies on size. I don't think we have the shooting or size to do either well enough to make noise this year.