The St. Thomas men’s basketball team was unable to stop a hot offensive output by the University of King’s College Blue Devils. They lost 103-82.
Thomas Watson and Ryan Harnett were on fire for the Blue Devils. Watson scored 33 points with six three-pointers, while Harnett had 30 points and eight assist.
(Johnny Cullen/AQ)
William Barber had a strong offensive game for STU with 29 points. He thinks that though they’ve lost two tough games in a row, there is still a lot of time for them to improve.
“We still got something special, it just takes some time to jell,” said Barber. “It’s a long season, so I think as long as we stay together, keep fighting, and keep at this, we’ll be okay.”
The Tommies’ defense allowed the Blue Devils to score over half of their shots. STU has now given up over a 100 points in back-to-back games.
“We need to work on our pick-and-roll defense a lot,” said Barber. “We let them get in the lane and turn the corner too much.”
Tommies coach Dwight Dickinson says that the team is still in development mode. The team lost four of their five players who started during playoffs for the Tommies last season, and have new players to the team.
“We’re still in development mode, and they were more or less in competition mode,” said Dickinson.
Ben Cripps also played well for the Tommies, scoring 24 points in the game. Cripps was able to stretch the defense, as the big man scored two three-pointers.
Dickinson said that their practice time for the past two weeks had been spent working on moving the basketball. The Tommies finished the game with 13 assists.
“We still have to adjust to their defensive play, and our guys with the inexperience weren’t able to adjust to that play, to move the ball against the defense that was there.”
The Tommies have two wins and two loses, and will play the Crandall Chargers and the UNB Saint John Seawolves on Saturday and Sunday.
