The Grenadiers celebrated homecoming with a 110-76 win over Alice Lloyd Eagles on Feb. 11 in the Activities Building.
The win brought the IU Southeast Grenadiers record to 19-7 and 9-1 in the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. This win was the fifth consecutive win at home for the IUS men’s basketball team.
The Grenadiers started the game with a strong lead on the Eagles. Both teams played a defensive game, resulting in 39 shots from the free throw line.
The Eagles fared better in free-throw shots shooting at 76 percent to the Grenadiers 73 percent. With seconds left in the first half, Spencer Allman, freshman guard, received a technical foul, adding two more points to the Grenadiers’ scoreboard.
Allman said the team knew what to expect from the Eagles from playing them before.
“We were really well prepared,” Allman said. “We went down to their place about a month ago, and we didn’t really play well, so we knew coming in today that we had to be ready to play.”
The Grenadiers went into halftime with a 53-36 lead on Alice Lloyd. Wiley Brown, IUS men’s basketball head coach, said the team still had a lot of improvement to do in the second half.
“I got on them at halftime, whether we were leading the game or not, I didn’t think we were competing,” Brown said. “Our interior defense is not very good right now.”
IU Southeast returned to the court, keeping the same momentum from the first half. The Grenadiers had six players shooting in the double digits.
Leading the team in points was Wes Cox, sophomore guard, with 19 points. Following Cox with 13 points, was Kegan Clark, sophomore forward.
Allman said the double digit victory could be attributed to a team as a whole on the court.
“We normally try to get up and down the court — that’s the tempo we like to play the game at,” Allman said. “We’re a fast paced team, the more opportunity and shots we get, the higher the score is going to be. If we play defense, it’s going to give us a better chance to win. I think it was a total team effort today, and we all shared the ball really well.”
Brown said one of the advantages IU Southeast has on their opponents is the youth of the team.
“Our guys are very athletic, and a lot of teams are not,” Brown said. “We can dribble around those guys, and, when their interior defense sucks in, we kick out, and we knock down threes all the time.”
J.R. Hammond, Alice Lloyd men’s basketball head coach, said he saw the faults in his team’s defense in creating too many opportunities for IU Southeast to make 3-point shots.
“That’s the reason we lost tonight,” Hammond said. “We gave them open shots, and they shot the ball well. [We have] to play better defense. That’s all there is to it.”
Homecoming festivities brought out this season’s largest crowd to support the Grenadiers.
For Brown, he said it was important for the team to perform.
“I always tell [the team] ‘When you come out, you have to do your job and play hard,’” Brown said. “You gain fans that way. When you get a crowd like this, those guys want to show how good they are.”
By HANNA WOODS
Staff
hrwoods@umail.iu.edu
