The No. 24 ranked IUS men’s basketball team defeated Purdue University Calumet Peregrines, 88-71, on Nov. 11.
This was the third annual Indiana University and Purdue University Challenge.
This was the Grenadiers third win in a row, and they remained undefeated through three games at home.
“We played a really good team,” Wiley Brown, IUS men’s basketball head coach, said. “[They] can beat us off the dribble, and they’re athletic.”
However, the Grenadiers are continuing to be affected by injuries from the early part of the season. Wes Cox, sophomore guard, sat out of the game due to a concussion he suffered in the Miami-Hamilton game on Nov. 5. Jake Simpson, freshman guard, only played six minutes, due to back pain.
“I wasn’t going to let him play, even if the doctors said he could,” Brown said. “We need him for the long haul. [Simpson] will be back. He’s a tough young man. He wanted to play.”
Along with Simpson and Cox, Antoine Watson, senior forward, is still out for the next few weeks, nursing the broken wrist he sustained in the Crimson and Cream Scrimmage.
“It’s better to get hit with [these injuries] now,” Brown said, “I’m a believer that in January and February you want to be headed in the right direction, [and] you want all the guys healthy.”
The Grenadiers received some help from Travis Bowman, junior guard. He added four points for IU Southeast in his first time playing for the team. He sat out the first three games, waiting to be cleared by the NAIA to play.
IU Southeast began with a slow start on offense, accompanied by foul trouble. Brice Mitchell, junior forward, went out of the first half after picking up two fouls quickly. They also put the Peregrines in the double-bonus by the 12 minute mark.
“We came out a little lazy,” Nick Gagel, senior guard, said, “but ended up picking it up and came out with a big win.”
The Grenadiers worked the ball into the post to score in the early going, and PU Calumet kept pace with them, eventually taking a two-point lead. It was then Brown called a timeout to get his team to regroup.
IU Southeast took a 49-33 advantage by half-time. The Grenadiers were already winning the battle of the boards, 22-11, and won in the rebound category, 46-27.
Joe Lawson, sophomore forward, was a huge contributor, having 10 boards himself and scoring 11 points.
In the second half, the Grenadiers came out and went after the Peregrines. The score was 67-48 until IU Southeast reeled off a 13-2 run, putting them up by 30.
PU Calumet never gave up, though. They closed the gap to under 15 points, but the Grenadiers were too much for them to handle, especially in the height category. IU Southeast oversized PU Calumet with an average height of 6 feet 2 inches to PU Calumet’s average height, just barely breaking the 6 foot mark.
The Grenadiers had five players score in double-digits: Gagel, Spencer Allman, freshman guard, Lawson and Mitchell, with 16 points, and Haris Batalevic, junior guard, had 12 points.
Around the three minute mark in the first half, the game was stopped because the foam siding on one of the backboards fell off after a player went for a block. The game was stopped for about five minutes, and the backboard was fixed by Denny Williams, assistant athletic director, with duct tape, proving, once again, duct tape fixes everything.
By JOSH WILSON
Staff
wilsjosh@ius.edu
