The past two weeks have been mostly good to the Southwest Men's Team. Winners of four of their last five, the Bears entered Thursday's regular season road finale, hoping to keep their recent run going with a win over Mississippi Gulf Coast.
And they did just that hanging with the host Bulldogs for the majority of the contest before taking the lead late and maintaining it, picking up an 83-76 decision.
"I thought that they (Gulf Coast) played really, really well to start the game," Southwest head coach Corey Schmidt said. "They hit some shots and put us in some tough positions defensively. They did a really good job executing their stuff and they built a little bit of a lead to start the game. We started to chip away at it and adjust some things that we did defensively and kind of just pounding the rock. I thought that it was a hard-fought win for our guys."
Offensively, the Bears (15-10, 8-5 MACCC) shined with four players finishing in double-figures in scoring, led by 19 from Javius Moore. Mark Drone posted 17 points while Joe Holloway had 15 and Jahshawne Joseph 10.
Early on, the Bears kept pace with the host Bulldogs through the first 5:00 of the game, however, they began to lose steam, trailing by as many as 10 at 20-10 with 11:15 to go in the first half.
Despite this, Southwest pressed on and began to inch closer. Makes from Joseph, Blake Hart and Deon Brown helped the Bears close the gap to as little as two.
Southwest trailed 38-32 at the half.
After pulling within three early in the second half following a Drone 3-pointer, the Bears struggled to slow down the Bulldogs who built a lead as large as nine.
A Brown 3-pointer at the 15:14 mark began the turnaround for the Bears. By the 12:50 mark, the Bears pulled within one at 57-56. Holloway nailed a 3-pointer with 8:38 to go, giving Southwest its first lead since 3:00 into the game.
After briefly losing the lead, the Bears got into rhythm and not only jumped ahead once again but maintained that lead despite the Bulldogs threatening late.
Just before the final buzzer the Bears inbound the ball following a Bulldog turnover and Drone scored with 2.5 seconds to go giving Southwest a 7-point lead. The play caused Schmidt to question the decision of his freshman guard.
"(I'm) obviously glad that we go the win, but we don't want to be doing that at the end of the game," he said. "When we are up and the game is decided, we don't need to be taking any more shots and that is something I told the guys during the game right before that play and I talked to Mark (Drone) about that personally after the game. We want to play the game the right way and that was not right."
The Bears return home Tuesday to host Northwest Mississippi at 6 p.m. to close out the regular season
