ST. LOUIS, Mo. – The RV and six-seed men's basketball team could not come out on top in a hot-shooting night in the GLVC Championship Tournament Quarterfinals against the RV and two-seed William Jewell College on Saturday night, March 7th in the Mark Twain Building in St. Louis, Missouri.
Score: McKendree University 66, William Jewell College 77
Record: Bearcats 22-8, 14-6 GLVC | Cardinals 21-9, 15-5 GLVC
HOW IT HAPPENED
Senior Cha'Vez Woods (Louisville, Ky.) became a force early on as the guard dropped in three field goals from close proximity to give the team a two-point lead five minutes into action. The 25th three-pointer of the season for fifth-year forward Noah Franklin (Cobden, Ill.) started to separate McKendree from the opposition with made three-point shot from beyond the arc, as sophomore guard Rini Harris (O'Fallon, Ill.) pounded the ball inside for a pair of layups to go up 19-12.
Woods and Harris would tag-team in the scoring output for the Bearcats to combine for 10 of their next 13 points over the course of six minutes of action, while redshirt junior guard Justin King (Mascoutah, Ill.) sank in the Bearcats' third triple of the evening. A two-handed throwdown by Franklin of a pocket dish via Woods tied the game at 34-all prior to a shot from beyond the arc by the Cardinals to give the 37-35 edge heading to the locker rooms for halftime.
Freshman guard Andrew Moore (Montgomery County, Mo.) opened up the second period with a three-ball while Harris continued to get his points inside the paint. Those two would primarily generate the offense for the next eight and a half minutes as Jewell utilized a 16-6 run to give themselves some critical momentum heading to the final stretch.
Woods channeled his inner-Harris toughness and took the ball to the rack to earn his scoring opportunities the hard way with a trio of lay-ins to bring McKendree back to within four. Yet, whenever the Bearcats looked to build some energetic pushes, Jewell was they to answer and keep them from getting any closer.
14 free throws were all capitalized on between the two squads during the final 48 seconds of regulation, as the Cardinals would come out on top in the highly anticipated matchup, with McKendree falling 66-77.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
• Harris led with a team-high 21 points on an efficient 8-for-11 (72.7%) shooting, while supplementing in other areas with six rebounds, three assists, and two steals.
• Woods had 18 on the evening on 7-for-11 (63.6%) scoring while corralling five boards and an assist.
• Franklin rounded out the double-digit scoring effort with 13 in the setback, as he also collected five rebounds with a pair of blocks.
• McKendree shot 52.2% from the field, 28.6% from deep, and 73.7% from the line.
• The Bearcats outrebounded the Cardinals 29-21 as both teams shot 50.0% or better from the field.
• McKendree had the edge in points off turnovers (7-6), second chance points (11-5), and points in the paint (40-26).
• The program moves to 5-6 in the GLVC Championship Tournament since joining the league back in 2012-13.
UP NEXT
McKendree will now await their fate in hopes of obtaining an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament, as the NCAA's selection show will air live on Sunday, March 8th at 10:00 PM CT over on NCAA.com.
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