By Mark Bennett
Matt Berry dunked the basketball and swung
from the rim for just an instant, soaking in the cheers of a
resilient Hulman Center crowd Wednesday night.
A second later, the final horn sounded.
Indiana State had finally won a close game.
More important, the Sycamores finally <EM>won</EM>.
They beat Bradley 71-66.
"It's something we needed," Berry
said of the moment.
The Sycamores (5-18 overall, 3-11 in the Missouri
Valley Conference) needed to end a five-game losing streak with
the MVC Tournament just two weeks away. They needed to climb
out of last place in the conference. They needed to start hitting
free throws. They needed a bold, emotional performance by one
of their seniors to snap the team out of season-long doldrums.
"Everything we needed, we got tonight,"
senior forward Djibril Kante said.
And the 6-foot-8, 245-pound Kante was indeed
Mr. Everything on Wednesday.
With senior teammate Terence Avery in the
starting center position for the second straight game, Kante
roamed the court as the four-man -- the power forward. He hit
the third and fourth 3-pointers of his college career in his
only two attempts against Bradley. Kante was 6 of 8 from the
field. And Kante, ISU's least accurate starter from the free
throw line this season, hit all seven of his free throws. The
team, the MVC's least accurate from the stripe, followed his
lead, hitting 22 of 25 and their last 18 in a row. And Kante
added his usual eight rebounds, two blocked shots and an assist.
His 21 points were a career-high.
"He's played with great passion for four
years," Bradley Coach Jim Molinari said of Kante.
Thanks to his 18 first-half points, the Sycamores
led 41-33 at halftime. Bradley led only twice afterward -- at
52-50 when sophomore Phillip Gilbert turned a steal into a fastbreak
layup with 9 minutes and 2 seconds to play, and again at 53-52
on a Marcello Robinson free throw.
Ironically, Kante failed to score in the last
ISU-Bradley meeting. That Jan. 31 game at Peoria, Ill., ended
in a 60-57 victory by the Braves (8-15, 5-9). Though Sycamore
Coach Royce Waltman said the Sycamores' offensive scheme led
to Kante's scoreless line at Peoria, Kante wanted felt partly
responsible for that defeat and wanted to make amends.
"I'd be lying if I didn't," Kante
said. "I know I didn't score a point, and that kind of embarrassed
me. And I wanted to prove a point."
The Braves got Kante's message right away.
"It seemed like everything he put up
went in," said Bradley freshman forward Danny Granger, who
had 16 points and nine rebounds.
Fortunately, though, Kante's younger teammates
jumped in when the Braves' defense tightened around him in the
second half.
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| Tribune-Star/Joseph
C. Garza |
| Big play: ISU's Djibril Kantes
(3) goes up against Bradley's Danny Granger in the second half
Wednesday night. |
Kante's only second-half points came on his
second 3-pointer, which stretched the Sycamores' lead to 46-39
with 16:50 to play. Once the Braves caught and passed ISU at
53-52, Kante's mates caught fire, especially Berry.
The sophomore scored nine of his 14 points
in the game's final six and a half minutes. The clutch shots
were a pair of free throws by Berry -- the only Sycamore with
a lower free throw percentage than Kante -- with 2:19 left for
a 69-64 Sycamore lead. A hook shot by Bradley's Reggie Hall had
pulled the visitors to within one at 65-64. ISU sophomore Marcus
Howard responded with a fall-away bankshot, and then stole the
ball on Bradley's next possession, setting up Berry's free throws.
A short jumper by Gilbert, who led Bradley
with 17 points, with 2 minutes to play was the final score of
the game.
That scoreless final stretch featured some
scrappy Sycamore defense. Kante blocked a layup by Bradley's
Joah Tucker. Still, the Braves had a chance to hit a tying 3-pointer
on their final possession, but after a loose-ball scramble near
midcourt Gilbert could only launch an off-balance and somewhat
premature 3-pointer that missed.
Kante, of course, grabbed the rebound. After
a timeout and a foul, the Sycamores began their final possession,
which ended on a long pass from Kelyn Block to Berry, who jammed
the shot.
Avery added 11 points. Howard had five assists
and one turnover, and Block had four assists and one turnover.
Slim hopes of avoiding the Friday play-in
round at the MVC Tournament were kept alive. To do that, ISU
has to finish in at least sixth place. With just four games left,
that would require Wichita State (13-12, 7-7) to lose the rest
of its games. The Sycamores' next chance comes in Saturday's
8:05 p.m. game at Evansville (5-18, 2-12). The Purple Aces' 73-55
loss to visiting Illinois State on Wednesday helped the Sycamores
climb from a last-place tie into ninth spot in the MVC.
Waltman said the goal, though, is to merely
prove the Sycamores are a good basketball team.
"Our mindset is we're disappointed. We've
failed in our goals," he said. "But we're never going
to say we're bad."
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