minneapolis, minn. - junior guard sammy ricks (st. Paul, minn.) had concordia university (0-1) inches away from upsetting division i georgia state university (1-1) on saturday evening at williams arena on the campus of the university of minnesota, but the golden bears fell short, 67-63 despite the last minute heroics by the transfer from north dakota state college of science. Senior guard matt cadwell (st. Paul, minn.) scored a game-high 26 points for the golden bears. box score
trailing 65-60 with just over a minute to play, junior forward craig heiman (marshall, wis.) threw an errant pass intercepted by the panthers, seemingly putting georgia state in the driver's seat for the final minute.
on the other end, the panthers' james fields committed a costly mistake on the baseline, leaving his feet and attempting to put a pass over the middle. Ricks jumped in front of it and dashed to the other end of the floor, dropping a layup over the outstretched arm of joe dukes, who fouled ricks on the play.
ricks converted the three-point play, bringing cu within two, 65-63 with 52 seconds to play.
on the ensuing possession with the shot clock winding down, dukes made his move on ricks, but with 17 seconds left ricks picked his pocket just inside the top of the arc and took off on another fast break. On a seemingly identical layup attempt, this time without the contact but still with the commotion, ricks' layup rolled off the rim.
ricks finished with 10 points and five steals.
with 13 seconds left, junior guard quentin barfield (milwaukee, wis.) grabbed the rebound near the elbow and was fouled inexplicably by chris echols, putting barfield at the stripe with another chance to tie. Unfortunately for concordia, barfield's free throws were off target.
georgia state was able to convert one of their two free throws at the other end but bernard rimmer pulled down the rebound on the second miss and made one of two once again, to extend the panther lead to four points with 10 seconds to play.
a last second three-point attempt by sophomore forward matt hackl (seymour, wis.) was off target as the golden bears fell just short of the upset.
it was a game that started rocky for concordia as their team-wide shooting woes continued from the previous night, once again, with one exception.
last night, it was heiman who couldn't miss. Tonight, it was cadwell who caught fire early and never stopped as he fired up 26 points on 10-18 shooting including three three-pointers.
cadwell also had a chance to tie the game late, with a three-pointer that was just off the mark with 1:53 to play.
in the first half, cadwell's second jumper put concordia ahead 4-3 early. Minutes later, with georgia state leading 7-4, junior forward thomas bassett (denison, iowa) had a shot goal tended, bringing cu within a point early at 16:32.
that was the last time concordia would score for nearly five full minutes when cadwell buried a three. During the time, concordia's stellar defense was able to thwart georgia state's early game plan of pounding the ball inside, as they were only able to build a 14-6 lead before cadwell's three cut the deficit to five at 11:36.
cu trimmed into what was once an eight point lead for georgia state behind the strong shooting of cadwell. He scored 14 of cu's first 16 points to bring the golden bears back to within two points, 18-16 as he drained his second three-pointer at 8:11 in the first half.
from there, the panthers sprinted for eight straight points and their largest lead of the game, 26-16 and held concordia scoreless for almost another four minute stretch.
that stretch was broken by heiman, who was held scoreless until the 4:53 mark of the first half when he knocked down two free throws to end the team's scoring drought, along with his own personal scoring drought.
heiman would power concordia back in the half. After the free throws with concordia trailing 26-18, cadwell and junior guard mike cunningham (minneapolis, minn.) each knocked down jumpers.
cunningham finished a point and a rebound shy of a double-double while also adding four assists.
trailing 28-24 with just under two minutes to play in the half, heiman scored six points to georgia state's two to tie the game at the break at 30.
heiman had eight points in the half, all in the last five minutes and would score 16 for the game while collecting seven rebounds.
the second half started the way the first half did, with cadwell connecting, this time for his third three-pointer and concordia's first lead since it was 4-3 at 17:42.
the panthers responded by reclaiming the lead with back-to-back baskets but that's when ricks got fired up with four consecutive points followed by a cunningham jumper to give concordia their largest lead of the game of five.
the golden bears would build their lead to five on three separate occasions in the game, for the last time at 46-41 after heiman hit a jumper.
from there, georgia state exploded for a 9-2 burst to reclaim the lead, 50-48 with just under nine minutes remaining.
after seemingly stealing the momentum away from concordia, heiman stepped up and delivered a big three-pointer to put cu back in the lead.
the teams jostled for the upper hand from there with georgia state pulling up by six after rimmer delivered a jumper for a 60-54 gsu lead with 4:44 to play.
they never relinquished the lead from there.
the game saw six ties and eight lead changes including six lead changes in the second half alone.
georgia state was led in scoring by echols, who poured in 18 off the bench along with seven rebounds. Four players scored in double-figures for gsu, who shot 41.1 percent (23-56) from the floor in the win. But gsu struggled from three-point range (20 percent, 3-15) and the free throw line (64.3 percent, 18-28).
concordia out shot gsu from the field, hitting 44.2 percent (23-52) and fared slightly better from deep, hitting 5-21 (23.8 percent). From the line, the golden bears were slightly better again, hitting 70.2 percent (12-17).
but concordia started the game perfect in eight attempts at the line, and hit just 4-9 down the stretch.
georgia state dominated the glass with a 41-32 rebounding advantage that was magnified late in the game when the panthers extended their advantage on the offensive glass to 18-9.
concordia will try to even their season record tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. At williams arena in their final game of the nabc classic when they have another tough test against bowling green state.
all photos by justin oakman photography
