Sports
Lumberjacks cruise past Canadian competition
Matthew Semisch
11/04/2014
The Dakota College at Bottineau (DCB) basketball team picked up its first two wins of the Brandon Colvin era last weekend, but it wasn’t always pretty viewing.
DCB blasted Canadian Mennonite 115-61 on Saturday night in the Woodshed. The Lumberjacks then cruised past the University of Winnipeg by an 84-53 count the following night to cap off a 2-0 performance in the season-opening Kevin Thom Classic.
The Lumberjacks flew out to a big lead on Saturday against CMU. DCB opened the game on a 22-4 run before taking a 61-23 lead into halftime. The Blazers tried to work their way back into the game in the second half by shooting 63 percent from the field, but far too much damage had already been done.
DCB was led on Saturday by a 22-point performance from freshman guard Louis Williams. Sophomore forward Keouvion McCalop also impressed by scoring 21 points of his own.
All that said, Colvin, DCB’s first-year head coach, found his team’s defensive play against the Blazers lacking.
“Giving up 61 points, normally you’d be really happy with that when you’re scoring 115,” Colvin said, “But they shot over 60 percent in the second half and we didn’t seem to have any kind of defensive intensity in the second half. That happens sometimes in games like this, and we need to fix that.”
The Jacks picked up a second easy win on Sunday against Winnipeg. Five DCB players hit double digits in the points column in a comfortable 31-point triumph over the Wesmen.
Again, though, although Colvin was glad his team moved to 2-o on the year, he knows the Jacks will have to step up their game further.
“We did some things better and looked better athletically.” Colvin said, “But if we don’t get better efforts out of the whole team, we can get ourselves in trouble against some of the teams we’ll be playing later on.”
DCB will visit Turtle Mountain on Wednesday in Belcourt before taking part in Lake Region State’s tournament on Saturday and Sunday in Devils Lake.