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Posted on Thu, Nov. 20, 2008 10:15 PM
MidAmerica pounds Park 75-53
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The Park Pirates had to know it wasn’t going to be their night after they went scoreless in the first 5 minutes, 40 seconds on their home floor.
MidAmerica Nazarene treated Park’s Breckon Sports Center as its home court Thursday evening, delivering a graduate-level basketball lesson in a 75-53 victory over the Pirates.
The Pioneers put on a showcase on stingy defense, fast-break offense and sharing the basketball. MidAmerica finished with 19 assists, shot 54 percent and held Park to 31-percent shooting.
“It’s great,” said MidAmerica junior forward Ben Swinger, who finished with 11 points. “You are off your home floor, but here we had a pretty good crowd. But it is great to go into somebody else’s house and beat them.”
MidAmerica held an 8-0 lead before Park took the goose egg off the scoreboard with two free throws by forward Jon Meriweather.
But Meriweather had no answer for the inside play of Danny Hawkins, Cal Kiburz and Swinger. Hawkins finished with 24 points and 11 rebounds, and Kiburz added 13 points, six rebounds and four assists.
The more impressive sequence of team basketball came late in the first half. On three possessions over a 2-minute period, Kiburz drove inside and hit Swinger cutting to the basket for easy layups.
There was little Park could do about the play. The Pirates had to respect the scoring ability of Kiburz, a 6-foot-9 forward who can score outside and inside. Kiburz recognized when Park played help defense and found Swinger.
And this was only one of the problems Park had defending the Pioneers. Guards Brenton Bell and Austin Boots were always looking to get the ball quickly down court for easy baskets.
Boots and Bell combined for 25 points.
“That’s when we are at our best,” Boots said. “We emphasize running, and that’s what really gets us in our offense and gets everybody up and ready and going.”
It all led to MidAmerica building a 38-22 halftime lead as it shot 56 percent and hounded Park into shooting 23 percent.
The second half pretty much mirrored the first half.
Posted on Thu, Nov. 20, 2008 10:15 PM
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