ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (9-16, 4-15 NSIC) was unable to erase an early deficit as they fell to Southwest Minnesota State (14-10, 11-7 NSIC) by a score of 87-64 on Saturday night.
The Mustangs used a 17-0 run to build a quick 22-4 advantage and they did not look back as they flipped the script from the first meeting of the season when the Golden Bears claimed an 88-68 win in Marshall. The win was SMSU's third in the past nine meetings as CSP dropped to 16-33 all-time in 49 contests between the two schools.
One night after seeing their string of five consecutive games with double-digit threes come to an end, the Golden Bears were back firing from deep as they matched their third highest total with 14 made threes while 40 of their 57 shot attempts came from beyond the arc. The 40 three-point attempts were the second most in the DII era at CSP. SMSU finished with half as many makes from three-point range with seven, but they won the battle down low as they outscored CSP 52-16 in the paint and used a 40-28 rebounding edge to tally a 16-2 advantage in second chance points. Turnovers also played a big role as the Mustangs turned 15 CSP turnovers into 28 points while the Golden Bears scored eight points on SMSU's nine turnovers.
Three different Golden Bears reached double figures in scoring, led by 15 points on 5-8 shooting and 3-5 from beyond the arc for
Ben Kopetzki. It was the freshman's fifth straight game and eighth of the last nine with at least 13 points while he added four assists and a pair of boards.
John Grigsby added 11 points on 4-6 from the floor and 3-5 from deep while
Sean Mathieu contributed 10 points, four assists and four boards.
Will Boser and
DJ Akpati both finished just shy of double figures with nine points apiece as Boser hit three from deep and Akpati had three rebounds and two steals.
Cliff Cofield led all players with 23 points for the Mustangs while Jake Phipps added 16 points and eight boards in the win.
After a pair of CSP buckets closed the gap to 5-4 in the opening minutes of the night, Southwest Minnesota State took control with 17 unanswered points over four minutes of play to build a 22-4 edge at the 14:08 mark. The lead remained comfortably in double figures until back-to-back Boser threes trimmed it to nine at 29-20 with 6:19 to go in the half, but that would be all the closer they would get as SMSU responded with eight points in a row. The lead was back at 18 at 44-26 before they took a 46-32 lead into the locker room at the break.
The Mustangs added to their lead with the first five points of the second half and they remained out front by 18 at 55-37 with 15:40 remaining before the Golden Bears made their move. Concordia connected on their next seven shots from the floor, including all five attempts from beyond the arc, to string together a 19-11 run over 5:43 to pull within 10 at 66-56. Southwest Minnesota State was right back on the attack, however, as they scored 19 of the next 24, capped off by a 10-0 run to give them their largest lead of the night at 85-61. A Mathieu three followed by an SMSU dunk brought it to a final score of 87-64.
Concordia hits the road for the final time of the season next weekend as they travel to UMary on Friday and #15 Minot State on Saturday.
