Last week the Wayne State College men’s basketball team continued to struggle as they fell to four straight losses after losing to St. Cloud State on Thursday and Minnesota State on Saturday at home.
On Thursday, the Huskies travelled into Rice Auditorium on top of the NSIC, but the Cats didn’t let that stop them as they played close against the Huskies. St. Cloud walked away with the win 67-64.
Junior J.J. Ferrin led the Cats with 20 points and four assists in 36 minutes. Sophomore Matt Noll had a strong overall game where he had a double-double including 20 points and ten rebounds.
The Cats played close, but it came down to turnovers and fouls that lost the game for WSC. The Wildcats had 12 turnovers compared to the Huskies six.
Redshirt junior Aurrion Harris had seven rebounds, three assists and eight points and talked about how the success of the game was due to how the team played together.
“Really just our togetherness, like the whole game, even though we probably started off a little bumpy, probably the first five minutes,” Harris said. “Then after that, second half came and then all our energy was just there. Like, our togetherness was there. Our rebounding, everything we needed, except for the last three minutes. It just kind of fell apart.”
WSC shot the ball well going 42.2% from the field, 40% from the three-point line and made two of their three free throws. The Huskies on the other hand had fourteen free throws coming from their effort in the paint with 30 points compared to the Cats 18 points in the paint.
The Cats showed a strong defensive presence in this game holding the Huskies under 70 points for only the seventh time through their 26 games, but senior Kai Smith still saw things to work on.
“[We need] to definitely take care of the ball, and then just work together as a team, because I felt that in that St. Cloud game, that was the most team-oriented ball that we played all year,” Smith said.
“Coach really prepared us, you know, with film,” Harris said. “We didn’t really practice too much just because coach wanted our bodies to be as healthy as possible.”
The second game of the weekend had a different story however as the Cats struggled to defend the Mavericks, allowing six different players to have double digit points. WSC did have five players with double digit points, but were unable to hold back on fouls allowing the Mavericks to shoot 30 free throws where they made 27 which helped lead them to a 81-69 win.
The Cats were led by Smith, who had 20 points with three rebounds and five assists before fouling out. Harris also had a double-double in the game with 13 points and ten rebounds.
WSC saw success while shooting, going 41% in the field, 25% from three and 72.2% at the free throw line, and played better in the second half scoring 45 points after only scoring 24 in the first. The strong second half however wasn’t enough to help the Cats defend Rice Auditorium.
After this game, Smith pointed out that the team needs to work on playing better together and make sure their defense is on point.
“Definitely our defense, because when we’re doing good on defense, it definitely translates to our offense, and that’s how we’ve been winning games,” Smith said.
Harris added on to Smith by talking about having to trust everyone on the court.
“So, our big thing this week is really, working on sharing the ball, really trusting each other to make that next shot, to make that extra pass,” Harris said. “And, you know, ultimately, especially rebounding for us, just because we’re kind of small.”
The Cats will test their teamwork tonight as they travel to Sioux Falls and face off against the University of Sioux Falls Cougars at 7:30 p.m. and then on Saturday in Rice Auditorium when the SMSU Mustangs come to Wayne for the final regular season game at 3:00 p.m.
