Behind a relentless rebounding attack, The Master's men's basketball team defeated the Dakota Wesleyan Tigers 69-65 Friday night to advance to the second round of the NAIA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament.
They will face the Southern Oregon Raiders Saturday in The MacArthur Center at 6 p.m.
The Mustangs (26-5) pulled down 50 rebounds, twice as many as the Tigers (25). And of the 50, 19 were offensive rebounds, which led to a 19-4 difference in second chance points.
For three quarters of this game, it looked like TMU was going to run away with it. They reached a 22-point lead with 9:52 to play and were looking to take out the starters to rest them for Saturday's second round.
"I thought we controlled the first half pretty well and the first 30 minutes," said TMU Head Coach Kelvin Starr. "But in the last 10 minutes we stopped playing, we stopped competing. We weren't the same level of defensive pressure that we had the first 30 minutes and that allowed [Dakota Wesleyan] to get hot. Give them the credit. They made some shots and competed to the end, as you should in a national tournament."
The Tigers began to make their shots, out-scoring the Mustangs 43-29 in the second half and hitting better than 59% of their shots from the field, including 5 of 10 from long range.
DWU cut the difference to 11 with 6:09 to play, and were knocking on the door to cut the lead to single digits.
But The Master's scored four in a row to go up by 15 with 4:49 to go.
That's when the Tigers defense turned up the heat to full furnace. Dakota Wesleyan went on a 13-0 run to make it a 67-65 game with just 10 seconds to play. Full pressure defense resulted in fouling
Kaleb Lowery, putting the 3-time GSAC Player of the Year on the line where he cooly made a pair of free throws to win the game for his Mustangs.
"I'm happy we won the game," Coach Starr said. "Kaleb made two clutch free throws down the stretch which was good for him... a good experience. But we literally could have lost that game quite easily. Look, it's the national tournament. Your going to get everybody's best shot because it's one and done. So it's a lesson to our guys that you've got to play 40 minutes and you've got to know who you're playing.Â
Lowery finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds to lead the Mustangs.
Quincy Phillips contributed 12 and
Jaren Nafarrete added 10.
"Now we've got to get ready because Southern Oregon is a very good basketball team," said Coach Starr. "They are an elite shooting team, and if they get comfortable and get open looks they are going to burn you. So we've got to be ready defensively.
"This time of year you've got to be ready to compete for 40 minutes," he continued. "That's what it comes down to. You can't play for 30 or 28 or 32... you've got to compete for all 40 minutes because as you go on here every team becomes elite. They've all won 20-plus games. There's no secret, they are all good teams and all have good players. So that's what we've got to do. We've got a chance to get back to Kansas City for the second year in a row and that's our goal. And as long as we are competing I'll be happy with the result."
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