Less than one week ago, the Bears positioned themselves as the #1 seed in\u00a0the\u00a0Midwest Christian College Conference tournament. They had already won the regular season outright and they aimed for another banner. They stormed through the first two rounds before running into a buzz saw in the\u00a0championship game against\u00a0non other than Manhattan Christian College (Manhattan, Kans.). So after a long week of recovery, preparation, and anticipation, the Bears were back in action Friday night against Arlington Baptist College (Arlington, Texas) in the opening round of the National Christian College Athletic Association Division II Southwest Region Tournament.<\/p>\n
Arlington was the only NCCAA Division II team to sweep the Bears during the regular season, but it didn’t seem to phase the Bears one bit. Heading into the contest, the Bears\u00a0knew they were at home, they had the confidence of winning nine of their last ten games, and they relished the opportunity to move one step closer to qualifying for the national tournament.<\/p>\n
Both teams seemed to come out of the gate with some nerves. There were more fouls called than made buckets\u00a0through large portions of the first half. \u00a0While the Bears’ two leading scorers on the season were forced\u00a0to the bench with three fouls apiece, the Patriots racked up extra possessions by pulling down 14 offensive rebounds. When the dust settled, the Patriots seemed in control as they built an eight point cushion by\u00a0halftime, 45-38.<\/p>\n
In the second half, the Bears simply\u00a0came\u00a0to life. They were once again forced to their bench because of foul trouble, and the bench responded in a loud way. The Bears, led by freshman Quinton Walker’s (Sulpher Springs, Texas) 26 points, roared past the Patriots and built a six point lead. The Patriots seemed rattled in a large way, but the Bears were unable to add to their lead\u00a0due to missed opportunities at the foul line. Action went\u00a0back-and-forth over the closing minutes. In the closing 30 seconds, the\u00a0Bears found themselves trailing by 3 when Junior Adrian Maloney Jr. (Wichita, Kans.) missed a three pointer and the rebound caromed\u00a0to the Bears all-time leading scoerer, senior Charles Brodhead,\u00a0who calmly knocked down his first bucket of the night to send the game to overtime.<\/p>\n
Overtime once again came down to the bitter end. With about 41 seconds left, the Bears converted off a set piece to narrow the Patriot lead to 3. All the Bears\u00a0needed was one more defensive stop and they’d at least have another chance to push the game to a second overtime with a three pointer. This time, however, the Patriots, ran the shot clock all the way down before burying\u00a0a three pointer to seal the victory, 103-96.<\/p>\n
The loss dramatically ended the Bears 2015-16 season and left them wondering “what if?” On the season, they had connected on better than\u00a069% of their free throws collectively, but on this night they were able to shoot just 51% (21-41) from the charity stripe. The Bears final record was 15-15, which included an impressive 9-1 run through the\u00a0MCCC. It was their first regular season championship since 2010-11.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Less than one week ago, the Bears positioned themselves as the #1 seed in\u00a0the\u00a0Midwest Christian College Conference tournament. They had already won the regular season outright and they aimed for another banner. They stormed through the first two rounds before running into a buzz saw in the\u00a0championship game against\u00a0non other than Manhattan Christian College (Manhattan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9372,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bears.barclay.college\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9370"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bears.barclay.college\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bears.barclay.college\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bears.barclay.college\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bears.barclay.college\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bears.barclay.college\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bears.barclay.college\/api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bears.barclay.college\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bears.barclay.college\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bears.barclay.college\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}