Cowley's best 10 minutes dooms Greyhound men

Friday, February 6, 2015

Looking at raw stats, such as the box score that accompanies this story, isn't necessary to dissect the game between Fort Scott Community College's men and Cowley College at Arnold Arena Wednesday night. It just simply comes down to this: the visiting Tigers played better during the first five minutes and the last five minutes.

And for Fort Scott head coach Michael Cook, who breaks each game down into five-minute segments that he wants his team to win, that's disappointing.

"In the first four minutes, they shot 70 percent from the field," Cook said after a 79-70 loss in Jayhawk Conference-Eastern Division play. "We came out flat. We didn't execute our defensive responsibilities in the first 10 minutes or the last five minutes. That's why they got open threes at the end."

Cowley (6-2 in the East, 10-15 overall) scored the game's first 16 points, making four 3-pointers during that run. But Fort Scott (3-5, 10-14) got back within 3 points with 4:14 remaining only to see the Tigers find some open threes to quickly widen the gap once again.

"You can look at it as, 'You came out flat' or you can look at it as, 'You came back and made it a game the last five minutes'," Cook said. "At the five-minute mark, we want to be up 5 or down 5. We were down 5 at the five-minute mark -- 5:47, I think. We fought back but we just didn't do what we were supposed to do the last four minutes of the game."

Fort Scott missed its first seven field-goal attempts and didn't get on the board until post Marcus Russell stuck back that seventh miss for a basket with 15:42 left in the first half.

From that point, the rest of the first half was played relatively even. The Tigers maxed the lead at 18 points with 3:52 to go, 46-28. Then the Greyhounds scored 5 in a row to trim the margin to 13.

Cowley led 50-36 at halftime but Fort Scott started the second half with a 11-1 run as the Tigers missed their first 10 shots of the half. Will Harrington, held to 4 points in the first half, scored the first and last baskets of that run.

Mason Loewen finally broke Cowley's drought by hitting a 3-point shot with 14 minutes to go, sparking a 13-4 run during which the Tigers held the 'Hounds to one field goal. Jarvis Cannon's triple capped the run with 10:26 left and Cowley ahead 64-51.

Fort Scott stormed back again with Devin Knight's layup starting a 13-3 run, capped by Harrington's jumper in the paint with 4:14 to go and bringing the 'Hounds to their closest point, 67-64.

During that stretch, the Greyhounds played a 3-2 zone with Russell in the middle of the front line, which seemed to bother the Tigers.

"We took away the penetration but we didn't get out there to close on the pass to the wing," Cook said. "I thought Marcus helped out on the screens there and in covering that top. But we fell asleep on the back side."

Tray Wheeler hit a 3-point shot with 3:46 to go for Cowley but Harrington drove for a layup to keep the 'Hounds within 70-66 with 3:22 left.

Cedric Johnson scored a stickback hoop for the Tigers, then Wheeler hit another triple from nearly the same spot as his last one with 1:42 to go, making it 75-66.

"I thought we panicked because they hit that (first) 3," Cook said. " We can build off the second-half effort. If we can fight and get better going into Saturday (at Kansas City), we'll be right where we're supposed to be in the Region."

Russell scored to keep Fort Scott within 75-68 with 1:21 to go. Johnson scored again for Cowley with 57 seconds left. Harrington scored with 38 seconds on the clock. Normally, this would be the time to foul and get the Tigers to the free-throw line but the Greyhounds had only committed two personal fouls in the half. But the time they got Cowley into the one-and-one, only 25 seconds remained.

Dwight Richards led Cowley with 14 points, all but 2 of them coming in the game's first 5 1/2 minutes on four 3-point goals. Wheeler and Terrell Gandy each scored 11 points. Eleven different players scored for the Tigers, who got 31 points from their bench.

Dalton Rose led the Greyhounds with 19 points followed by Harrington with 18 and Xavier Hunter with 13.

Cowley shot 46 percent from the field for the game, making 29 of 63 field-goal attempts and 15 of 28 from 3-point range. Fort Scott shot 36 percent on 24 of 67 while making 15 of 18 free throws.

Fort Scott out rebounded Cowley, 44-39. Harrington had 8 rebounds for the 'Hounds as well as 3 assists.

One odd stat from the game: Fort Scott recorded no steals while Cowley had 6. The Tigers also blocked 9 shots with Kaleb Ratliff blocking 5.

This was the Greyhounds' final game of the season against a Division I school. The remaining six contests are all key for Region VI Division II post-season tournament seeding, beginning with a conference bout at Kansas City at 4 p.m. Saturday. Going into these last six games, Fort Scott is fourth among the seven teams with a 3-3 record against Division II teams. Brown Mackie and Johnson County are tied for second with 4-3 region marks while Highland and Kansas City are tied for fifth with 3-4 region records.

The team with the best record gets a first-round bye. The next three teams get home-court advantage in the first round of the Region VI Tournament. Fort Scott is the defending champion.


COWLEY: Loewen 3-4 0-0 8, Wheeler 4-11 0-0 11, Gandy 4-9 1-2 11, Richards 4-13 2-2 14, Ratliff 1-1 2-8 4, Cannon 2-4 0-0 6, Fulton 2-4 0-0 5, Petteway 2-3 1-4 6, Johnson 4-9 0-0 8, Burgess 1-1 0-0 2, Garvin 0-1 0-0 0, Diakate 0-0 0-0 0, Maxwell 2-3 0-0 4. TOTALS: 29-63 6-16 79.

FORT SCOTT: Harrington 8-20 2-2 18, Hunter 2-13 9-10 13, Rose 6-13 2-2 19, Owens 1-4 0-0 2, Russell 2-5 1-2 5, Santiago 0-1 0-0 0, Knight 3-5 0-0 6, Brull 2-6 0-0 6, Criddle 0-0 1-2 1. TOTALS: 24-67 15-18 70.

Halftime: Cowley, 50-36.

Three-point field goals: Cowley 15-28 (Richards 4-9, Wheeler 3-4, Loewen 2-2, Gandy 2-5, Fulton 1-1, Petteway 1-2, Garvin 0-1), Fort Scott 7-17 (Rose 5-10, Brull 2-5, Owens 0-2).

Total fouls: Cowley 17, Fort Scott 12. Fouled out: None.

Rebounds: Cowley 39 (Ratliff 10), Fort Scott 44 (Harrington 8). Assists: Cowley 21 (Loewen 6, Wheeler 6), Fort Scott 11 (Harrington 3, Hunter 3). Turnovers: Cowley 7, Fort Scott 8. Steals: Cowley 6 (Wheeler 2), Fort Scott none. Blocked shots: Cowley 9 (Ratliff 5), Fort Scott 3 (Knight 2).