By Mark Bennett
At one point after another crucial play by
Lamar Grimes in Evansville's Roberts Stadium, veteran teammate
Kelyn Block wrapped his arm around the freshman point guard's
neck in a gesture of thanks.
With just three regular-season games left
in the college careers of Block and fellow seniors Djibril Kante
and Terence Avery, the younger Indiana State Sycamores are beginning
to deliver clutch performances. As a result, the Sycamores are
on a two-game winning streak.
In 71-66 victory over Bradley last Wednesday,
sophomores Matt Berry and Marcus Howard scored ISU's last 14
points. Then in an 82-71 win Saturday at Evansville, the underclassmen
accounted for 66 of the Sycamores' points. Grimes and Howard
had career highs of 25 and 20 points, respectively. Berry added
13.
Now the Sycamores (6-18 overall, 4-11 in the
Missouri Valley Conference) bring a long-missing element into
tonight's 7:05 game against Drake (11-14, 6-9) ... momentum.
"I think we've got a little momentum
going here now," Berry said.
It's come at the absolute last moment. The
Sycamores have only a flickering chance of a sixth-place finish
in the MVC, which would allow them to avoid playing a play-in
game at the MVC Tournament on Friday, March 1. They'll have to
win their last three games, and Wichita State (7-8) and Drake
must continue to lose.
The last time ISU and Drake met was in the
MVC season opener way back on Dec. 9, when the Bulldogs won 85-71
at Des Moines.
"It's been a while since we played Drake.
We played them in the first [MVC] game of the season," Berry
said. "The coaches are going to work hard on the scouting
report and we're going to come back and play them hard."
The Bulldogs' backcourt ran down offensive
rebounds all afternoon in that first matchup, outboarding ISU
41-33. Point guard David Newman had a game-high nine rebounds.
Drake also shot well.
"If they shoot the ball as well as they
did when we played them out there, I don't know if anybody can
beat them," Sycamore Coach Royce Waltman said. "That
had to be one of their best games."
Back then, though, virtually all of the Sycamore
offense came from Block, who scored 23 points at Drake. By contrast,
the senior hit just 1 of 9 field goals at Evansville and finished
with three points. Instead, they got 25 from Grimes, who played
29 minutes off the bench. At Drake in December, Grimes played
nine minutes.
Grimes did more than play well offensively
Saturday, though.
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| Evansville
Courier and Press/Gary Admire |
| Sticky D: Indiana State's
Matt Broermann defends a drive by University of Evansville's
Tobias Brinkley during Saturday's game. |
"You look and see that he made shots
and had 25 points, but that's the most active he's been defensively,"
Waltman said. "And that's why he's not in the games sometimes,
because he hurts us defensively. But if he would play with that
kind of alertness, well he's going to get a lot of minutes and
be successful."
ISU got 40 points from its reserves.
"It definitely helps when you've got
guys off the bench contributing like that," Howard said.
And though Block scored only three points,
he also had seven assists, just one turnover and four rebounds.
Kante had six points, nine rebounds, three assists, a blocked
shot and a steal. Howard had 20 points, six rebounds, two steals,
two assists and a block.
"I think everyone contributed tonight,"
Howard added. "We had guys scoring. We had guys playing
great [defense]. We had guys rebounding."
Grimes' effort seemed to help others.
"It was a big lift. I thought I came
in and gave the team a spark," Grimes said. "And guys
were able to feed off that. Guys were able to knock down shots.
It just builds our confidence."
His defense will be needed tonight. Though
Drake has lost three of its last four games, the Bulldogs are
armed with the MVC's top scorer in 6-foot-6 guard Luke McDonald,
who scored 27 points in a 68-54 win over Bradley on Saturday.
The Sycamores can't allow another high-scoring
game by the Bulldogs tonight, Waltman said.
"So we've just got to come out and try
to stay with them and guard them a little bit better," Waltman
said, "and hopefully they're not quite as on fire as they
were out there."
Since that loss at Drake in December, the
Sycamores' season has gone quite different than they expected.
As it reaches an end, Howard said they've managed to keep spirits
up.
"That's one thing Coach has been stressing,"
he said. "We've been struggling this year, and the main
thing is staying positive and working hard."
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