Bruins ends Snow winning streak, but
Badgers blast Spartans to finish season
By Jacob Clawson
Staff writer
2-27-2020
The Snow College men’s basketball team’s five-game winning streak came to end with a nail-biting loss to Salt Lake Community College, 76-77, last week. But the Badgers rebounded with a 23-point victory over Colorado Northwestern, 103-80, to conclude their regular season play.
In a game that felt more like a competition of who could show off the most, the Badgers fell short in the last seconds to the SLCC Bruins to end a five-game winning streak.
Even in a game that came down to the wire, the score was constantly changing by large margins.
The Bruins went on a substantial run in the first half, and went into the locker room up by 6 points. Snow came back in the second half and found themselves up by10 points at one point. The second half victory by the Bruins all came down to the last shot though, as the outcome hinged on a single point with 13.8 seconds left.
After freshman point guard Nate Duckworth drove down the middle, landing his long floater, the Badgers claimed the lead for the final time at 76-75, leaving the Bruins just over 13 seconds. Grabbing the rebound off Duckworth’s missed free throw, the Bruins stormed down the court to land a layup, giving them the one-point lead.
Down by one with 7.3 second on the clock, the Badgers regained possession and took a timeout to set a play into motion. Darrian Nebeker took the pass in and drove through the lane, looking for a pass but miscalculated as the ball never reached its mark. With the ball out of bounds, the clock hit zero, and the Badgers walked off, defeated by one.
Coach Robert Nielson shared a few words after the loss, explaining what happened. “We played really hard and they’re a really good team. We battled with them and they made a couple of plays, and we didn’t. That’s really the name of the game though… those last two minutes. We gave up a lot of layups, something that can’t happen, in those last two minutes. We had some chances and some good looks, but they didn’t go in.”
He continued mentioning the upcoming tournament, and their hope to be matched up against the Bruins once more. “We learned that we can play with these guys and hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to see them one more time next week at the conference tournament. We have a lot of work ahead of us before that, but our kids are confident, and we learned a lot of things tonight. We know we can battle with them.”
The Badgers then finished off the week in Rangely, Colorado, where they went on to defeat the Spartans, 103-80, to give Snow a 17-13 record for the season.
The teams spent the first half fighting for any possible leads, but ended the first quarter tied at 44. The second half was clearly claimed by the Badgers though as they outscored Colorado Northwestern by 23 points. The team also had six players scoring in double digits, being led by Brayden Johnson’s 22 points, followed by Matt Norman’s contribution of 18.
Snow College will now move on to the Region XVIII tournament as the No. 2 seed to compete for the title this week in Twin Falls, Idaho. Starting on Thursday, they will start off against the Southern Idaho Golden Eagles, and hopefully make their way to the championship game on Saturday, most likely against the eighth ranked team in the nation, the SLCC Bruins.
