Fort Lewis College men’s basketball has been a great defensive team this season. The Skyhawks took their defensive efforts to a historic level on Thursday night in their 74-38 win over Colorado Christian.
The Skyhawks never allowed Colorado Christian to get into any sort of offensive rhythm; they forced 25 Cougars’ turnovers. When FLC wasn’t forcing turnovers with its full-court press or in the half-court, the Skyhawks were guarding their man tighter than two coats of paint. FLC jumped out to a 16-5 lead and never let up.
Colorado Christian’s 38 point was the second-fewest FLC has allowed in program history and the fewest in a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference game.
“It’s really cool for these guys to be rewarded for their defense, playing hard and playing as a team,” FLC head coach Jordan Mast said. “They were all rotating and flying around together … they've been really getting after it these last few weeks, especially after that Westminster game. Our attention to detail has been a lot better these last few weeks and it showed tonight.”
FLC improved to 13-6 overall and 6-3 in the RMAC after it shot 41% from the field, 29% from the 3-point line and 67% from the free-throw line in the win.
Fifth year guard Tru Allen led FLC with 17 points on 6-14 shooting from the field, 3-4 from 3-point range and 2-2 from the free-throw line. Senior guard Biko Johnson had 14 points on 4-8 shooting from the field, 2-5 from 3-point range and 4-8 from the free-throw line.
Colorado Christian fell to 7-10 overall and 3-6 in the RMAC after it shot 26% from the field, 16% from 3-point range and 72% from the free-throw line in the loss. Tate Odvody led the Cougars with 11 points on 3-8 shooting from the field, 1-4 from 3-point range and 4-4 from the free-throw line.
FLC faced some adversity in the first 90 seconds as senior forward Chuol Deng picked up two fouls and went to the bench. Deng’s presence didn’t seem to hinder FLC’s progress early. The Skyhawks forced multiple turnovers in the first 3:30 and junior forward Cassius Carmichael finished two layups to put FLC up 8-2 with 16:30 left.
It seemed like someone unplugged the scoreboard as the game went scoreless for a few minutes and FLC led 11-2. Colorado Christian really struggled to get clean looks against FLC’s length and couldn’t finish the contested ones.
Johnson hit a 3-pointer to put FLC up 16-5 with 11:51 left. The Skyhawks bench was hot as the under-12 media timeout started. The referees called some questionable fouls and missed a goaltending call on Colorado Christian.
The Cougars played a 2-3 zone defense against FLC to little success. The Skyhawks, specifically Johnson, cut through the zone like a warm knife through butter and found great shots. Johnson found freshman forward Aiden Gibson for a corner 3-pointer to put FLC up 21-9 with 9:57 left in the first.
FLC extended its lead to 26-9 with 6:55 left after a slam by freshman forward Jude Brideba and a steal and score by redshirt freshman Stewart Erhart. Colorado Christian had no answer for FLC’s press and struggled to run good half-court offense. Erhart is so good at attacking an offensive player when they’re least expecting it and taking the ball for a steal.
Freshman guard AJ Riggs, known as a 3-point shooter, had back-to-back nice drives to the basket for layups to increase FLC’s lead. Allen hit a 3-pointer on a nice kick out from Johnson and junior forward Keither Florence hit a free throw to put FLC up 34-13 with 2:40 left in the half.
The Skyhawks led 39-17 at halftime and Deng only played one minute with two fouls.
“Credit to the guys that stepped in,” Mast said. “We've had some guys that haven't got a lot of opportunities in minutes and in these last few games, when they’ve got these minutes, they've come in and made the most of them.”
FLC continued its dominant play and started the second half on an 8-0 run to go up 30. The Skyhawks forced five turnovers in the first 3.5 minutes. The highlight play of the game came from Deng on the fast break. Johnson gave Deng a bounce pass on a two-on-one fast break and Deng finished with a thunderous one-handed slam with 18:10 left.
The Skyhawks continued to fly away from the Cougars with their strong defense. Colorado Christian could not get any separation from its FLC defenders. Colorado Christian took so much time to break FLC’s full-court press it didn’t have much time to run its sets. A layup by Deng put FLC up 63-26 with 7:40 left.
FLC’s largest lead was 70-30 after a Tru Allen 3-pointer with 5:05 left. Twelve of 13 FLC players who saw action played at least 10 minutes.
“The message has been, ‘We have to never be comfortable when we’re playing, we have to be us for 40 minutes,’” Mast said. “So tonight was awesome to see them actually do it. I didn't feel like on the defense end there were any lulls; our pressure was there the entire 40 minutes.”
The Skyhawks continue their road trip with a game at UCCS on Saturday at 3 p.m.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
