Men thrive at Moody with double-digit wins
The SMU men’s basketball team is now 3-0 in Moody Coliseum.
On Wednesday night the Mustangs took on the University of Louisiana-Monroe. SMU played ULM to open the season last year and suffered a 71-64 loss. The Mustangs avenged that loss last Wednesday night.
The Mustangs shot an impressive shooting 63 percent from the floor, and 52 percent from the three-point line.
Leading the scoring was Ike Ofoegbu who scored a career high 26 points, and Bamba Fall who scored 17, also a career high. What added to Fall’s points was going 7-9 from the free throw line.
It was career nights for Jon Killen and Donatas Rackauskas as well. Killen had 10 assists and Rackauskas had 13 rebounds.
“The guy can score,” said head coach Matt Doherty about Ofoegbu, “because he can catch and shoot from the perimeter.” Doherty added that Ofoegbu was able to do 42 pull ups at 225 pounds, and ran a mile in about five and a half minutes. “[Ofoegbu] would have started for me at North Carolina or Notre Dame, now you see why.”
With a 55-30 half time lead Doherty stressed the importance of “winning the second half,” stating “if we don’t win the second half Friday’s practice will not be pleasant.”
Coming into Monday’s matchup against Paul Quinn College, “I haven’t studied them yet, we take it one game at a time, regardless of our opponent.
The Tigers came in a proved to be a handful.
The Mustangs started off strong, building a 36-10 point lead mid-way through the first half.
That pace seemed to fade from SMU as Paul Quinn fought back.
With a 32-point advantage early in the second half, Paul Quinn began to come back. Time just ran out, as the Tigers fought to their slimmest deficit as time ran out.
The 76-54 victory improves the Mustangs to 5-1.
Once again Ofoegbu led the Mustangs in scoring with 18. Fall continued rewriting his own record books, picking up a career high 12 rebounds.
The Mustangs also got 11 points from Devon Pearson and Rackauskas.
But coach Doherty was not happy with just coming away with the victory, “really disappointing, it was probably our worst performance of the year.”
The Mustangs matched their first half scoring with 38, but allowed Paul Quinn to improve off their 17-first half points to 37 points in the second half.
“We talk about being a championship caliber team, and championship caliber teams perform better in situations like this,” said Doherty.
“If we would have played a Conference USA team tonight, we would have lost,” said Doherty.
The problem with the second half was that SMU was “very lethargic, allowed too much dribble penetration, too sloppy with the ball, execution wasn’t very good,” said Doherty.
Brian Epps was one who had problems shooting on Monday night. “Brian Epps goes 0 for 6 and he’s probably one of our best shooters, some nights they aren’t going to go in,” according to Doherty, who added “he has the green light on any night.”
The Mustangs have some time off before their next game when they will take on Texas College on Sunday night.
That game will mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of Moody Coliseum.
Men thrive at Moody with double-digit wins
