Shorthanded Snow squad
drops game to SLCC, 91-89
By Rhett Wilkinson
Staff writer
2/24/2021
EPHRAIM—The Snow College men’s basketball team came all the way back from being 24 points down and went on a 35-11 run to take an 89-85 lead with 1:17 remaining.
But Salt Lake Community College, a rival of Snow, hit two 3-pointers 47 seconds apart in the final minute to beat the Badgers 91-89 Saturday.
Eighteenth-ranked Snow [8-4, 3-2 in the Scenic West Athletic Conference] was playing shorthanded. They took the court without key players Matt Norman and Tredyn Christensen. [Norman was day-to-day as of Saturday and Christensen is quarantining for 10 days due to COVID-19. He is six days in.]
When asked how his team played, Snow Coach Robert Nielson said, “Not very good,” before saying his team “really battled” from being down 24 points.
“We made some plays that were not very smart,” Nielson added.
On his team’s 35-11 run, Nielson said “We have the capability to be really good,” pointing out that 12 freshmen were playing.
“The experience is really big,” Nielson said. “It will help in the long run.”
Snow’s comeback was anchored by a barrage of 3-pointers. The Badgers went 8-of-19 (42 percent) from 3-point land in the second half, after shooting 2-of-13, 15 percent, in the first half.
Should Snow shoot more threes?
“No,” Nielson said. “We probably need to shoot less because everybody is defending [them] so hard … We’re shooting hard threes when we could get easy twos. … We’re probably going to have to shoot less [threes] for a while.”
SLCC [11-1, 4-1] shot 18-of-31 [58 percent] from the 3-point line.
“They had guys [Marvin Price, 17 percent] who had been shooting 18 percent go 4-for-5,” Nielson said. “It was just one of those nights where guys that do one thing do something else.”
There were 11 fouls between the teams in the first five minutes of the second half. On the Badgers’ side, where there was six, that was due to Snow trying to be more aggressive, Nielson said.
“In the first half, we were more passive,” Nielson said.
Michael Scheffner led Snow with 23 points on 9-of-15 shooting, while Travis Wagstaff, Drake Allen, Hagen Wright and Ross Reeves had 22, 15, 12 and 11, respectively. Allen, Scheffner and Wright had 10, seven and six rebounds, respectively. Reeves had six assists and two steals.
Scheffner exited the game with 9:04 remaining in the contest, but returned from the locker room with 6:55 to go.
The Bruins’ Quincy McGriff made a 3-pointer from a corner to make it 89-88 with 53.2 seconds left. Reeves then air-balled a 3-point attempt with 26.9 seconds left.
Then, SLCC’s Felix Lemetti made a 3-pointer from a wing for the go-ahead basket, giving the Bruins a 91-89 lead with 16.4 seconds to go. Then Allen threw the ball away with 3.9 seconds left. But Allen made a steal on the ensuing SLCC inbounds pass, giving the Badgers the ball with 1.9 seconds to go. Then the Bruins knocked the ball out of bounds with 0.7 seconds left under the Badgers’ basket after a down court pass. But Wagstaff then missed a fadeaway three from a corner at the buzzer.
