Men’s basketball victorious against Jamestown Jimmies, displays offensive skill

Photo description: Junior Trey Scheef shoots a basket as freshman Brooks Kissinger watches the shot. 

Photo credit: Courtney Wright

Jonas Sommerville

Sower Staff

The Concordia men’s basketball team defeated the Jamestown Jimmies Saturday evening in a Great Plains Athletic Conference matchup, with their high-powered offense helping them cruise to a 99-78 victory.

The first half was a battle of wills between the two teams, as they traded buckets for much of the first half. Some hot shooting off the bench helped Concordia take a firm lead around the seven-minute mark, 33-20. The Bulldogs went into halftime up 48-35. Concordia shot 19-37 from the field as a team, 8-19 from three-point range and 2-5 from the free-throw line.

Jamestown attempted to stay within striking distance in the second half but had foul trouble that made it difficult to try and go on any extended runs. Concordia went up 68-48 with 11 minutes left in the game and held off any runs Jamestown went on to secure the dominant win.

The Bulldogs continued to shoot the ball well in the second half, going 15-33 from the field, but the three-point shooting went cold as Concordia shot 4-16 from behind the arc. The Bulldogs also went 17-22 from the free-throw line in the second half.

Juniors Noah Schutte and Tristan Smith both had double-doubles in the win. Schutte scored a team-high 19 points and also tacked on a team-high 14 rebounds while Smith scored 17 points and had 10 rebounds of his own. Fellow junior Bradley Bennett led the team in assists with three and added five points of his own.

Senior guard Joel Baker scored 11 points off of the bench. Head Coach Ben Limback had nothing but praise for Baker.

“I felt like senior Joel Baker you know set the tone off the bench and really ignited us, and I was just proud of how we fed off of that,” he said.

The Bulldogs had several players thrive against Jamestown off of the bench and Coach Limback knows that anyone on the team can come in and play a critical role at any point.

“I told the guys already this year multiple times I have a really hard job this year in terms of putting the right guys in (in) certain situations, but they make it look easy on nights where they just go out and play,” said Limback. “I feel like we got some good depth on the team and the message is ‘always be ready.’”

The Bulldogs are now 5-2 overall and 2-2 in the GPAC. With two more GPAC opponents coming up on the schedule within the next week, Coach Limback had some thoughts on what needed to be improved to sustain success in conference play.

“We got to get better at defending the ball off of the dribble. We allow too many dribble attacks and I feel like we fell asleep on some threes and stuff too in the second half. But overall, on both ends our goal is to practice as hard as we can and make each other better every day,” he stated.

The Bulldogs will face Mount Marty University on the sixth. The GPAC matchup is in Yankton, South Dakota at 7:45 p.m.