The Southeastern Community College men's basketball team had rival Moberly right where it wanted them.

The Blackhawks got the high-flying Greyhounds into a grind-it-out, slowdown slugfest. They forced the Greyhounds to take tough shots. And on the offensive end, the Blackhawk shot the lights out in the first half.

SCC had Moberly on the ropes, but couldn't land the knockout punch. Instead, turnovers, offensive rebounds and missed shots inside proved to be the Blackhawks' undoing as Moberly escaped with a 71-67 win on Saturday night at Loren Walker Arena.

The 17th-ranked Blackhawks played well in spurts, but a combination of 26 turnovers, 17 offensive rebounds allowed and three missed shots in the paint in the final two minutes ended the Blackhawks' modest four-game winning streak.

"We have to learn from losses like we do from wins. Like I told our guys, this is going to be the toughest game to date because it's the first one back. They had two under their belt. They are a great team. Not a good team. A great team," SCC head coach Lorenzo Watkins said. "I was proud of our guys because our game plan, they put on the floor. Now it's about the execution. They didn't take us out of anything. We hurt ourselves. That's the part we struggled with. Once the game plan is on the floor, now you have to execute it. We had the tempo the way we wanted it. We wanted them in the halfcourt. There it goes against the rim and they go get it. Their motto is to shoot it and go get it. They did a good job with that."

"There's not many places where we have a losing record at. This has been a tough tough place for me. Of course I've coached against Joe O'Brien and all of the great teams that have been down here. So to come up here and get a win, this means a lot more than the home win does," Moberly head coach Pat Smith said. "I think there is a big difference between playing your third game back and playing your first game back. This is our third game. Zo's got a really good team. We won the Highland tournament three years in a row. They went up there and beat the Triton team that beat us. That was impressive. I think they deserve the ranking."

SCC (14-4) couldn't have scripted a better start against a team which beat them by 29 points in late November. Boubacar Kamissokom knocked down a 3-pointer to open the scoring and Diew Moses followed with a trey of his own. A spinning shot in the lane by Aaris Bonds, a conventional three-point play by Elias Ezenekwe and a layup by Bonds gave the Blackhawks a quick 13-4 lead.

SCC seemed to hit nearly everything it threw at the rim, knocking down an eye-popping 75-percent from the field in the first half.

"I thought we did a great job guarding them initially. We held them to one possession shots. The huge ones were the weakside rebounds. The shot from the opposite side, 90 percent of those balls are coming off the opposite side. Those are things that we can learn from this and understand how important it is to take care of the ball and rebound," Watkins said.

"We coach a little differently at home than we do at home. I just felt like tonight we probably needed to tempo the game. We couldn't tempo the first couple minutes because we couldn't get stops. The first nine minutes I think they had 26 points," Smith said. "Then we got the game slowed a little bit and I started thinking, 'You know, this is probably one of those games where we need to slow it a little bit.' We tried using a little more containment pressure."

But the Blackhawks' red-hot shooting in the first half was offset by 10 turnovers, which the Greyhounds turned into easy layup, allowing Moberly to stay within striking distance.

"The unforced turnovers. Four or five possessions in a row, just give them the ball and they go lay it up. When you turn it over for baskets, you have no chance," Watkins said. "It was evident in the first half. You shoot 75 percent, but you have 15 turnovers and you're giving up 12 to 15 points, that's why it was only a four-point game at halftime"

"They have a really good team. That big kid inside, Bonds, he makes them a lot better. He gives them that threat to play around. I don't think they are a great shooting team, but they were knocking down some shots in that first half. Luckily in the second half they didn't go as easily," Smith said.

SCC cooled off from the field in the second half, shooting just 33 percent. But it was 6-foot-4 sophomore guard Eddie Creal who was a thorn in SCC's side. He had six offensive rebounds, leading to all 16 of his points, 12 in the second half. SCC was outrebounded by a whopping 39-26 margin.

"That's his game. He understands the game well," Watkins said of Creal. "I thought we did a good job on (Markelo) Sullivan tonight. Those two guys are what we talked about. You have to keep (Creal) off the glass. You keep him off the glass and we've got an opportunity. That's the only way he scores."

"We chart it. If they don't go, they run. We chart it in practice. Our rule is, three, four and five, you go every time," Smith said. "You refuse to be blocked out. If you don;t go, you run in practice and you sit in games. A couple guys didn't go and we took them out. I told them, 'Don't look at me. You know our rule.' When he went back in, Eddie Creal was all over the offensive glass."

Moberly (14-4) took its first lead on a layup by Juwon Carpenter three minutes into the second half. The Greyhounds would not lead again until a tipin by Dusan Mahorcic which gave Moberly a 69-67 lead with 2 minutes, 5 seconds left.

SCC, which was held scoreless the final 3:43, had several chances to tie or take the lead. Carlos Lemus, Jr. missed a shot on the left baseline and Bonds missed the putback from point-blank range. Moments later, Kamissoko missed a duck-under shot in the lane, then missed another shot on a drive down the left baseline.

"We dodged a couple bullets. Zo is going to go back and he is going to be frustrated because they missed a couple shots around the rim," Smith said.

"We missed three or four layups. We got offensive rebound and Aaris puts it back and missed Even a last-second shot with two seconds to go and miss a point-blank layup. A lot of the mental part of it is just grinding. You have to make plays down the stretch," Watkins said. "We'll get there. What we want to accomplish is still there. We just have to continue to play with the energy and effort we did tonight."


Eddie Creal 7-15 2-2 16, Dezmond Jones 5-11 2-2 14, Cortez Mosely 3-7 2-3 8, Markelo Sullivan 4-7 1-1 9, Juwon Carpenter 4-9 0-0 10, David Ware 1-3 0-0 2, Tyrek Chambers 2-11 0-0 6, Eloge Ntumba 0-0 0-0 0, Dusan Mahorcic 2-6 2-2 6. Totals: 28-69 9-10 71.

SCC (67)

Diew Moses 3-3 0-1 7, Aaris Bonds 4-7 4-7 12, Boubacar Kamissoko 4-8 0-0 9, Elias Ezenkwe 1-3 3-3 5, Carlos Lemus, Jr. 4-7 2-4 10, Camryn Weston 4-6 1-1 11, Miganeh Abdi 1-6 0-0 3, Zurabi Zhgenti 3-4 0-1 7, Dadrian Hoambrecker 1-1 1-1 3. Totals: 25-45 11-18 67.

Halftime: SCC 44, Moberly 40. Fouls: Moberly 19, SCC 13. Fouled out: None. Technicals: None. 3-point goals: Moberly 6-22 (Carpenter 2-3, Jones 2-6, Chambers 2-7, Mosely 0-1, Sullivan 0-1, Creal 0-2, Ware 0-2), SCC 6-13 (Weston 2-3, Moses 1-1, Kamissoko 1-1, Zhgenti 1-1, Abdi 1-5). Rebounds: Moberly 39 (Creal 8, Sullivan 8), SCC 26 (Bonds 7). Assists: Moberly 9 (Carpenter 3, Chambers 3), SCC 10 (Weston 4). Steals: Moberly 24 (Creal 5), SCC 19 (Ezenekwe 3, Lemus 3). Blocks: Moberly 2 (Carpenter 2), SCC 2 (Bonds 2). Turnovers: Moberly 22 (Chambers 6), SCC 26 (Lemus 8).

Records: Moberly 14-4, SCC 14-4.