WEST PLAINS, Mo. – The Missouri State University-West Plains Grizzly Basketball team will play Moberly Area Community College at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23, in Moberly to see who will advance in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region 16 Post-Season Tournament later this week in Joplin, Mo.
The Grizzlies (19-10 overall, 2-6 in Region 16) will go into the contest seeded fifth in the tournament after falling to Moberly 97-66 Friday, Feb. 19, at Joe Paul Evans Arena in the West Plains Civic Center in the final game of the regular season. With their win, the Greyhounds (20-10, 3-5) are seeded fourth in the tournament and earned the right to host Tuesday’s contest.
Three Rivers College (23-7, 6-2) in Poplar Bluff is seeded first in the tournament, followed by Mineral Area College (25-5, 5-3) of Park Hills in second and State Fair Community College (18-9, 4-4) of Sedalia in third. Three Rivers will play the winner of Tuesday’s game between the Grizzlies and Moberly at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, at Ozark Christian College in Joplin. Mineral Area and State Fair will face off at 8 p.m. that same day at the same location. The Region 16 Championship game will be played at 3 p.m. Saturday at Ozark Christian College.
Friday’s game between the Grizzlies and Moberly seemed to be a case of Murphy’s Law for the Grizzlies – anything that could go wrong did. “This game was one of those games that had unexplainable plays,” Grizzly Basketball Head Coach Yancey Walker said. “For example, we fumbled the ball on a pass from the referee on an out-of-bounds play and it rolled in bounds. There were simply some odd plays, and we couldn’t overcome them.”
The Grizzlies struggles came early and left them trailing the Greyhounds 48-32 at halftime, and they didn’t fare much better in the second half in which they were outscored 49-34.
“Their offensive rebounding gave them more chances than we could withstand to score,” Walker said. “We missed some good looks, but they made twice as many shots as we did. We attacked and got to the free throw line, but very few of those were opportunities for a 3-point play because we avoided the contact.”
Statistics show the Grizzlies hit 20 of 56 shots from the field for 35.7 percent, five of 26 3-point attempts for 19.2 percent and 21 of 30 free throw attempts for 70 percent. They also had 31 rebounds, nine assists, 13 turnovers, three blocks and six steals. Leading scorers were freshman forward Devonte Campbell with 13 points, freshman forward Mike Parks, Jr., with 12 points, and sophomore forward Ngor Barnaba with 10 points.
The Greyhounds hit 41 of 80 shots from the field for 51.2 percent, nine of 27 3-point attempts for 33.3 percent and six of nine free throw attempts for 66.7 percent. They also had 39 rebounds, including 19 off the offensive glass, 11 assists, 10 turnovers and 10 steals. Leading scorers were Daniel Dzierszwski with 22 points, Rashad Lindsey with 18, Chris Clark 13 and Demarco Owens 11.
“The hardest part about this game was that I wanted to send our sophomores off the right way, and this wasn’t it,” Walker said. “We have to regroup and be ready for Tuesday. We beat Moberly at their place earlier in the year, and we’ll have to do it again. Otherwise, the season is over.”
For more information about the Grizzly Basketball program, visit the team’s website or call the Grizzly Basketball office at 417-255-7993. Complete game statistics can be found here.