Jays get confidence booster with victory over Southwestern
One thing the Bluejays have got to be hard up for these days is confidence.
After three distasteful performances, including a pair of back-to-back losses last week and an overtime win at Ottawa, the Bluejays' account for confidence was overdrawn.
No better way to make a deposit than with a win over a team that downed Tabor Dec. 2 on the road.
The Bluejays (12-8, 6-4 KCAC) did just that Saturday night in Hillsboro, outlasting the Southwestern Moundbuilders, 90-80.
A team that's averaged 62 points the last three games, Tabor's 90 marked a season-high.
"The situation we're in now there is no one game that is particularly huge for us," Bluejay coach Don Brubacher said. "We have to try to play better basketball and we simply have to try and get better. I think it (win) was a confidence builder for us, but it's still hard to say."
The Bluejay win leaves Sterling the KCAC front-runner with McPherson, Southwestern, and Bethany chasing the Warriors.
The league's top scoring team squared off Saturday against the seventh highest scoring.
Averaging 87 points a game, the Builders thrive on using their up-tempo style to turn games into run-and-gun.
From the opening tip-off, the game looked like it would definitely go down to the wire.
Neither could pull away, with the lead changing hands six times in the first 9:00 of action and two ties.
The Builders putting up points in a hurry comes from their perimeter shooting, and few can turn in an outing quite like Ricky Kendrick did.
Kendrick lit the Bluejays up for a game-high 28 points behind an astounding 8-for-10 from downtown. He had help, too, with K.J. Wilkens adding 16 points and a trio of threes.
Kendrick's three at the 6:10 mark ignited a 10-0 run that left Tabor down 35-24 just over 2:00 later.
"What you would have found the most remarkable was how we guarded on the perimeter and how well they shot the ball," said Brubacher. "We've watched game film and we've never seen anybody who has hounded them on the perimeter the way we did. Yet the one guy (Kendrick) just shot an extraordinary percentage."
The Brubacher brothers, Andy and Grant, weren't ready to pack it in just yet.
Andy countered Kendrick's perimeter performance on 6-for-9 for a season team-high 22 while Grant added 18, including four triples from seven attempts.
The two drained threes to close the gap to 35-32 with 1:54 left before halftime.
On Saturday, the free thrown line was their best friend with Tabor shooting a season-high 88 percent at the line including a perfect 6-for-6 the first half.
Andy sank a pair with a second left in the first half, making it a 37-34 game at the break with Southwestern hitting 50 percent from the floor and 45 percent from outside.
Of the Builders' 37 points, 23 came from the duo of Wilkens and Kendrick while Tabor got a combined 21 from Andy and Pat Miller.
A team that relies heavily on its inside game, Tabor's been stymied lately.
With the Builders keying more on the perimeter, Tabor pounded the ball inside to Brad Gattis, Miller, and Martin de Boer.
Gattis supplied 19 points while Miller and de Boer combined for 20 with 10 each.
Andy's basket at the 16:50 point put the Bluejays over the hump for good, 44-43, before the track meet began.
Tabor hit a stretch with 14:02 left where de Boer scored eight straight en route to 6-for-6 at the free throw line, while pushing the Bluejay lead to 58-48.
Hitting a scalding 8-for-13 from behind the arc and 16-of-19 at the free throw line, the Bluejays were able to stay in control despite Southwestern shooting 6-of-8 from outside and 58 percent for the game.
Chris Metcalf's three-point play with 2:18 left gave the Bluejays their largest lead of the game, 85-71.
Poor shooting and rebounding backfired on the Bluejays in Winfield earlier in the season.
Shooting 62 percent the second half and 49 percent on the night, Tabor improved since Dec. 2.
Rebounding was a bright spot, too, with the Bluejays winning 36-32 with a team-high eight coming from Scott Schaffer, who also had a game-high seven assists to go along with six points.
"The biggest thing that was such a huge improvement from what we have been seeing is how well we shot the basketball," Don Brubacher said. "We shot really well from the free throw line and we shot really well outside the three-point line."
The Bluejays face a rugged two-game road stretch starting tonight in Wichita against Friends at 8 p.m. Tabor then travels Saturday to Leavenworth for a 7 p.m. tip-off against 2-8 St. Mary.
