The Tuesday, Feb. 7 basketball game between the Johnson Community College Cavaliers and the Centurions was basically over before it began, with Bucks winning 86-69.
The Cavaliers had only five players on their team that were being counted on to play the entire 40 minutes. “We knew that they would tire out if we kept them running, so we tried to make them run every chance we got,” Centurion Coach Steve Coyne said afterwards.
Centurion guard Emmanuel Pittman lead the charge with 33 points and center Tariq Benn and point guard Sean Ritter helped in the cause with 15 and 10 respectively. Cavalier players Tyrik Gass and Hassan Johnson scored 26 and 17 in a losing effort.
The Centurions shot 50 percent in regular two-point field goals and 40 percent from three-point range. They also outrebounded and had more than double the amount of assists in the game.
The Cavaliers tried to attack the Centurions with a 1-3-1 defense that had four guys up top and 1 guy down in the low lane to basically try and guard all three positions.
“Anytime we passed the ball down to the low corner, we had the shot all day and their guy just wasn’t able to get from point to point in time, especially late in the game,” Coyne said.
As far as how his team played Coyne said, “We played good, it was a total team effort and we shot the ball well and cut down on turnovers.”