Setting a new season-high in points, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team would jump out to a 16-1 lead and never look back in what would become a 92-50 home thrashing of the McPherson College JV team inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Saturday, November 26th.
Matching the longest win streak by a T-Bird men's basketball team since the 2008-09 season, Cloud County has now won seven straight games to improve to 7-2 overall while finishing non-conference play with a 4-2 mark. CCCC's two losses would both come in the opening four days of the season which included a 10-point road loss to the number-one team in the country Indian Hills.
It wouldn't take long for Cloud County to jump out to an early lead as sophomore Malang Athian would find Corey Sawyer Jr. for an open three to start what would become a 7-1 start to the game over the opening 2:20 of action. Adding to their lead with layups from Justin Graham and Sawyer Jr., the T-Birds would be able to pick their spots over the opening five minutes of action as 12 of CCCC's first 16 points would come by way of layup. Holding a 16-4 lead with 13:56 left in the first half, Cloud County would see Andre Gray II turn a steal by Sawyer Jr. into two points with a layup to start an 11-4 spurt that would see the T-Birds go up 23 at 29-6 with 8:10 remaining before halftime.
McPherson JV would manage to hit a couple of shots from beyond the arc to cut into the CCCC lead briefly over the next three minutes of action, but it would do little to turn over momentum as the T-Birds would continue to attack the paint and score basically at will to maintain their 20-plus point lead. With things essentially in control and holding a 39-16 lead, Cloud County would finish the half by scoring six of the final eight points of the half to carry a 45-18 lead into the break.
Things would become a back-and-forth start to the second half as both offenses would begin to heat up after going the first 2:44 without any points being scored. The CCCC lead would eclipse the 30-point mark with 13:49 left in the game as Athian would connect on a three before seeing Ja'Ron Briggs Jr. hit a three of his own to give the T-Birds a 34-point advantage. McPherson JV would manage to get the deficit back under 30 on two separate occasions over the next three minutes of play before seeing an 8-2 Cloud County run to allow the T-Birds to cruise their way through the final stretch of the game that would see CCCC outscore the Bulldogs 22-14 to cap off their largest victory of the season.
For a third-straight game, Cloud County would shoot over 50 percent from the field by hitting on 38-of-69 (55.1 percent) of their attempts while hitting seven-of-20 (35.0 percent) of their attempts from three and a nine-for-13 (69.2 percent) mark from the free throw line. The T-Birds would also hold a commanding 52-25 advantage in rebounds and hold a 60-12 advantage in points in the paint.
Five different players for CCCC would find their way into double figures as all 12 players who saw action would score in the game. Leading the way with a team-high 14 points would be Sawyer Jr. in 20 minutes of action while Gray II would score 13 off the bench. Grabbing a game-high 12 rebounds would be Cheikh Sow who also had six assists and three steals.
What's Next?
The T-Birds will welcome Seward County to Concordia for an 8 PM home game on Wednesday, November 30th in their next game action. Seward County dropped a 90-81 home decision to Dodge City on Saturday afternoon to fall to 5-2 overall and 2-2 in the KJCCC. Cloud County and SCCC split their two-game season series last year, with both teams winning on their home courts.
Original source can be found here.
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