Midcon Men's tournament Day 3

Right before tip-off no one could park in the UMAC parking lot except for those with VIP passes or better. Furthermore cops were apparently preventing people from parking across the street in the Mall parking lot. The VIP lot was half empty. So was the UMAC, believe it or not. ORU dominates the crowd, but there are a surprising number of empty seats. How could the general parking lot be full?????

Eddie Sutton walked through the door right after I did.

Game 1: ORU Eagles vs. IUPUI Jaguars

The Jags got off to a horrible start, letting ORU run off the first 11 points. Patterson actually had a layup, but it was swatted away by Shawn King like it was nothing. Meanwhile, ORU was hitting everything. Finally Avery got a layup to put the Jags on the board. Green was denied underneath, but King cleaned up. ORU is just too big for the Jags, on top of hitting everything in sight. This is getting ugly really fast.

3rd media timeout: ORU 22 IUPUI 7.

IUPUI caught a few sparks here and there, but couldn't sustain anything. With one minute to go, ORU worked 2 possessions and converted on both. Halftime score: ORU 37 IUPUI 16.

IUPUI crept to about 15 down early in the 2nd half. Craig Swope hit a basket and a 3.

My good buddy Matt "I make a better wall than a window" Gastel just sat down in his usual place. Maybe I'll get to say hi.

First media timeout: ORU 43 IUPUI 28.

The rest of the game was pretty much the same, with IUPUI not able to do much. With 2.5 minutes to go, Sutton emptied his bench. The Maniacs immediately started chanting, "Cancel Classes!" over and over again in the direction of President Richard Roberts until he finally gave them the thumbs up. They went crazy, and almost on cue, an ORU player hit a 3.

Final score: ORU 75 IUPUI 54.

In between games, a Valpo student pointed out that the tourney program contains a page of ads on behalf of Chicago State. As he said to me, "somebody didn't get the memo."

Game 2: Oakland Grizzlies vs. UMKC Kangaroos

UMKC started out hot from beyond the arc, and Oakland had trouble on offense. At the first media timeout (13:16!) UMKC was up 17-8. Kampe was hoppin' mad in the huddle.

Kangas finally hit a 3 to bring the score to 21-13 at the 2nd media timeout (11:06).

Oakland fought back to 21-18 on another Kangas 3 and some clutch steals, but Brumagin hit a 3 to put UMKC up by 6 again at the 3rd media timeout (7:48) - UMKC 24 Oakland 18.

They closed to 24-22, but then UMKC stretched the lead back to 28-22, including a basket by Dee Ayuba. At the final media timeout, UMKC 28 Oakland 24 (3:53).
UMKC went into the locker room up 40-32 at halftime.

The 2nd half started out with both teams hitting shots. UMKC stretched the lead to 10 by the first media timeout: 54-44. But after that and a Day basket, UMKC was stalled at 56 while Oakland fought back to tie with a 12-0 run. Brumagin hit a 3 off the UMKC timeout, but then Oakland had an 8-0 run to lead by 5 at the third media timeout (7:54).

From this point on it was nip-and-tuck. Brumagin hit another 3 and Ayuba got one of his patented hookshots in the lane to tie the score at 64. UMKC would then go up by 2 and Oakland would tie it up. With 1:26, UMKC went up by 2 when Brumagin hit 2 FTs off a Derrick Nelson foul. This time, Kangas hit a 3 to put Oakland up by 1, and Hopes followed with a layup to make the score 79-76.

UMKC had a chance to tie it up, but after inbounding the ball, a pass was made to the backcourt for an over-and-back violation. Brumagin then fouled Kangas who hit 2 FTs to make it 81-76, but Day hit a 3 to make it 81-79 with 11 seconds to go, but Vova Severovas hit his 2 FTs and the final score was Oakland 83 UMKC 79.