2008 Woodie Awards
SectionsSecond half surge gives Bears fourth straight win
Kai Raymer
Issue date: 11/27/07 Section: Sports
- Page 1 of 1
|
It went away after halftime.
Junior guard Chris Cooks scored 14 of his 19 points in the second half to rally the Bears from a 22-point first half deficit to a 73-69 victory at Winthrop.
Head coach Barry Hinson said the comeback spoke highly for the resiliency of his squad.
"We really needed a game like this, especially on the road, to find out what this team is made of," Hinson said in his postgame radio show. "There were certainly some things we were upset with and still need to work on, but this was a huge win."
A pair of 3-pointers by Dale Lamberth and Cooks capped a 13-0 Bears run and gave Missouri State its first lead of the game at 61-60 with 4:32 remaining.
Winthrop's Taj McCul-lough answered with a conventional three-point play on the Eagles next possession, but Cooks responded with a three-point play of his own.
Missouri State led the remainder of the game in improving its record to 4-1 on the season.
The Eagles got within two points in the final minute, but Lamberth got loose underneath and converted a three-point play to seal the victory.
It snapped Winthrop's 24-game home winning streak. Even more, the Eagles had won 47 of their previous 48 home games overall.
Winthrop led 18-5 early on and 43-21 with less than three minutes remaining in the first half.
Senior guard Michael Jenkins led the onslaught with 18 first-half points as the Eagles went 6-of-9 from 3-point range.
That all changed in the second half as Winthrop went 6-of-29 from the floor, including 2-of-10 from behind the arc.
"We finally got out there and guarded," Hinson said.
A few individual Bears also got some extra attention from Hinson at halftime.
"I was upset with some of our players," Hinson said. "Dale was non-existent in the first half and Chris was pretty quiet, too. I challenged them at halftime because I knew they were better than that."
Cooks led the Bears with 19 points on a perfect 6-for-6 shooting from the floor. Lamberth added 11.
Senior forward Deven Mitchell had 12 points and a game-high seven rebounds.
Jenkins scored a game-high 23 points for Winthrop and McCullough had 16.
The Bears, who shot 7-of-22 in the first half and scored 29 points, made a few changes to their offensive gameplan after halftime.
"There was a point early in the second half where we just decided to see what would happen if we ball screen every time down," Hinson said. "We had some pretty good success with it."
The Bears went 15-of-28 in the second half, including 5-of-11 from 3-point range.
Missouri State visits Arkansas next Monday night. The Razorbacks (4-1) are ranked No. 27 in the AP Poll and No. 28 in the ESPN/USA Today Poll.
Be the first to comment on this story