Anderson Outlasts Mount St. Joseph

The Anderson University men's basketball team outlasted Mount St. Joseph University with an 82-78 victory during Saturday's Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) matchup in O.C. Lewis Gymnasium.

"I thought we did pretty good," Jalen Johnson said. "Overall we played hard. We started out slow, but we picked up and made the plays that we needed to."

"I thought that Mount St. Joseph gave us a good game and fought hard against us and although we didn't play our best the entire time we pushed through and got the W which matters most," J.D. Bembry added. "I believe that the win was good for morale and is good momentum to add for the tournament."

The Lions (6-19, 4-14) put up a fight against the Ravens (13-12, 10-8) after Anderson rolled to an 82-55 victory against Mount St. Joseph earlier this season.

"Mount St. Joseph is a much-improved team from the first time we played them," Coach Owen Handy acknowledged. That is no surprise, because Coach Carrigan is such a good coach and they have a good group of talented young players."

Mount St. Joseph took a 16-8 lead in the opening 10 minutes, 18 seconds, but Anderson erased the deficit and entered halftime with a 37-34 lead.

A bucket by Malik Laffoon to start the second half put the Ravens up by five. Mount St. Joseph responded with an 8-0 swing in the next 2:40. Both teams remained within a possession until the Lions went on a 3:17 scoreless drought and Anderson pulled ahead 57-48 with 9:02 remaining.

Anderson led Mount St. Joseph 61-52 with 6:56 to go, before the Lions began to chip away at the lead. A 3-pointer from Devin Young with 2:42 to go cut Anderson's lead to 73-70. Both teams matched each other's point totals on the next five possessions, give Anderson an 81-78 lead with the possession with 21 seconds remaining.

That possession, Young came with a steal, give the Lions the opportunity to tie the game. His two attempts to put up a layup came up empty, but Young gather both offensive rebounds. Mount St. Joseph called a timeout to setup a play. On the play, the Lions were called for an offensive foul and Anderson pulled away for the win.

"We got off to a slow start. We didn't compete hard at the defense of end of the floor and got behind the tempo that we like to play with. We shaped that up over the middle 20 minutes of the game and then overcame some defensive mistakes to pull off the win."

"It could have been a lot better for us," Larry Johnson said. "We started off slow, we picked it up in the middle of the game and we didn't end as well as we thought we should. We learned our lesson and we'll take this into our next tournament game and build from there."

Mount St. Joseph turned the ball over 24 times while Anderson committed only eight turnovers. The Ravens capitalized by outscoring the Lions 25-10 off turnovers and 11-2 on fast breaks.

Mount St. Joseph converted 28-of-49 (57.1 percent) shots from the floor while Anderson hit 26-of-54 (48.1 percent) attempts from the field. The Ravens drained 27-of-30 (90 percent) shots from the free-throw line while the Lions made 16-of-21 (76.2 percent) shots from the charity stripe.

Maurice Knight poured in 27 points to lead the Ravens. The 6-foot-4 junior wing from Frankton hit 7-of-9 (77.8 percent) shots from the free-throw line.

Dalton DuBois scored 12 points for the Ravens.

"Maurice and Dalton were really good offensively," Handy stated. "Our best offense was just throwing the ball to one of the two of them and letting them make a play."

Laffoon racked up 23 points. The 6-foot-2 senior guard from Bloomington drained 10-of-11 (90.9 percent) attempts from the charity stripe.

Ronny Williams tallied 12 points and five steals. Larry Johnson and Jake Gudorf rounded out Anderson's scoring with four points apiece. Austin Lyons also blocked two shots.

Young paced the Lions with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Cedric Woods contributed 13 points and four assists. Tanner Clos and Brady Thomas scored 11 points each.

Anderson recognized Bembry, Larry Johnson, Jalen Johnson and Laffoon for Senior Day.

"I feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to coach our four seniors. These are guys who are tough, coachable, and a lot of fun to be around. We are really going to miss them."

The Ravens return to the HCAC Tournament for the fourth year in a row. Fifth-seeded Anderson battles fourth-seeded Bluffton University (15-10, 11-7) on Friday at 6 p.m. in Lexington, Ky.

"I'm looking forward to going out and giving our best effort," Jalen Johnson acknowledged. "We're going to get some rest with Sunday and Monday off, but then we're hitting it hard for the rest of the week. I think it's going to be important for us to get clicking, get on the same page and put this thing together to see if we can make this pretty special."

"We're just looking to win," Larry Johnson commented. "We're looking to play our best basketball each night and win the whole thing."

"I think we are playing our best ball going into the tournament," Bembry stated. "I think we have as good a shot as anyone to win it if we are focused and stay composed and execute on both ends of the floor. We have won our last 3 games and although we could have played better today we pushed through which shows our toughness and resilience which I believe can take us a long way going through the tournament because no game will be easy."