Pokes win CBI quarterfinal

Sports – The Branding Iron Online Redshirt Junior Alan Herndon jumps in attempt to dunk the basketball. (Photo by Morgan Roppe)
The Cowboys basketball team picked up their 20th win of the season on Monday night in the Arena-Auditorium over the University of Missouri Kansas City, 72-61.
The Kangaroo’s came out of the gates in a full court press, but UW was able to take advantage of the pressure, starting off with a 11-0 run.
“I thought we handled it well,” guard Jason McManamen said. “We were able to take advantage of the press early on and got some easy transition points.”
McManamen finished the night with 11 points, leaving him 11 shy of 1,000 for his career. It was also his 100th straight game he has made an appearance in.
UMKC was able to weather the storm and battled back to finish the first half. UW would go into halftime leading 38-32.
“That was a good opponent and they play very hard,” head coach Allen Edwards said. “They have the ability to comeback no matter how much they are down, and that’s something I talked about with the guys.”
Guard Justin James lead UW scorers in the first half with 12 points and finished with 21 total. The key to the game was holding UMKC’s leading scorer, LaVell Boyd, to only 2 points and no field goals in the first half. Boyd came into the game averaging just over 18 points a game.
“It’s always a team effort on defense, but I took it personal tonight,” guard Jeremy Lieberman said. “Coach set out to put me on him to cause havoc and make it difficult on him and I felt like I did that pretty well.”
The rest of the game would fare the same for Boyd, who would finish with only five points and one made field goal.
“I gave kudos to Jeremy (Lieberman) in the locker ...


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