Box Score
Box Score (html)
ADA, Okla. – Most teams won't win a conference road game when hitting just four second-half field goals and shooting 24.1% for the game. The SWOSU men's basketball team isn't most teams.
The Bulldogs earned their third straight victory and improved to 6-0 on the road by grinding out a 55-43 win against East Central on Saturday afternoon in Ada. The win improves SWOSU to 8-4 on the year and 5-1 in Great American Conference play and keeps the Bulldogs atop the GAC standings as the only team with one conference loss.
Trent Washington scored nine straight points in the second half – after the Bulldogs missed their first 10 attempts of the half – to give SWOSU a 35-27 lead with 12:32 to play. Good time management and superb free throw shooting (20-of-27 in the second half, 23-of-33 for the game) helped the Bulldogs thwart any rally posed by the Tigers, despite connecting on just 4-of-26 (15.4%) field goals in the second half.
For the game, Coach
Bob Battisti's squad hit just 13-of-54 (24.1%) field goals and 6-of-23 (26.1%) three pointers while also being outrebounded by East Central 44-to-37. Washington finished with 15 points and
Kenyan Borders added 11 in the winning effort.
"We did what we had to do win on the road," Battisti said. "We limited possessions for the other team to tempo the game in our favor and we guarded well. That, plus only turning the ball over seven times, allowed us to escape with the victory tonight."
Bulldog fans will get their next look at the first-place Bulldogs on Thursday night when SWOSU hosts Henderson State at Rankin Williams Fieldhouse.
