Box Score
The Malone University men's basketball team lost an 89-75 decision at home to Cedarville University Thursday evening in a key American Mideast Conference matchup. Both teams came into the contest with identical 11-5 AMC records with the top seed in the four-team AMC Qualifying Tournament on the line and it was the visiting Yellow Jackets who came away with the key win. Had Malone won, it would have locked up the top seed in the AMC playoffs. With Cedarville emerging victorious, the Yellow Jackets can now earn that top seed with a victory in their final regular-season game on Saturday against Notre Dame (OH) College. The complete playoff picture is listed at the bottom of this story. With the loss, Malone drops to 18-11 overall and to 11-6 in the AMC while Cedarville improves to 17-11 overall and to 12-5 in the conference.
The Yellow Jackets jumped out early to take a nine-point lead, at 15-6, just five minutes into the game but Malone rallied back to cut it to three points, at 24-21, with 10 minutes left in the first half. The two teams battled back and forth with Cedarville's lead ranging from three to eight points before the visitors went into the locker room at halftime with a six-point 44-38 lead.
In the second half, Cedarville extended its lead to 64-51 midway through the period before Malone clawed back with an 8-1 run to cut the deficit to just six points, at 65-59, with just over six minutes to play. The Yellow Jackets would not allow the Pioneers to get any closer, though, as the visitors pulled away for the 89-75 victory.
Four Pioneers reached double digits in scoring, led by guard
Eric Coblentz and forward
Cory Veldhuizen who each tallied 13 points. Veldhuizen also grabbed a team-best five rebounds while Coblentz dished out four assists and had two rebounds. Forward
Ebiowei Porbeni racked up 12 points and yanked down four rebounds while senior guard
Kyle Higgins also hit twin figures with 11 points to go along with three rebounds and two assists. In addition, guards
Isiah Elliott and
Che Richardson each tallied nine points with Elliott adding four assists, three rebounds and two steals while Richardson also had four rebounds, two steals and one block.
Cedarville was paced by Matt Harner with 25 points as Derrick Hannon followed with 20 points. Hannon led the team in rebounds with 11.
The visiting Yellow Jackets sank 29 of 56 attempts from the floor for 51.8% while the Pioneers made 26 of 62 for 41.9%. Cedarville held a slight edge from beyond the arc, hitting eight of 20 for 40% as Malone netted seven of 19 for 36.8%. At the free throw line, the visitors held a decisive advantage, converting 23 of 27 for 85.2% while Malone made 16 of 23 for 69.6%. Cedarville held the upper hand in rebounds as well by a margin of 40-29.
Malone will close out its regular season with an away contest at Mt. Vernon Nazarene University on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. The game will be broadcast on WNPQ 95.9 FM and can also be heard at
www.thelight959.com. Free
Live Video will also be provided by Mt. Vernon Nazarene.
SENIOR RECOGNITION: Malone's four seniors were recognized for their outstanding careers at Malone just after tonight's contest (and prior to the Malone women's contest vs. Walsh). Congratulations to
Kyle Higgins, Ebi Porbeni,
Jock Rottman and
Nick Watts !!
Playoff Picture: This season, the American Mideast Conference will award two automatic bids to the NAIA Division II Men's Basketball National Tournament. Walsh University has locked up the first bid after having already secured the AMC regular-season title. The second bid will be awarded to the winner of the four-team AMC Qualifying Tournament that will consist of finishers two through five in the final regular-season standings. The tournament will begin on Tuesday, February 22nd with No. 5 traveling to No. 2 and No. 4 at No. 3. The winner of these opening round games will then face-off at the highest remaining seed's home court on Saturday, February 26th with a trip to the NAIA Division II National Tournament on the line. The conference's two national tournament representatives (Walsh and the qualifying tourney winner) will then take part in an AMC Tournament Championship Game that will be held at Walsh on Tuesday, March 1st. (See AMC Tournament Bracket below)
Malone and Cedarville have each locked up a spot in the four-team postseason tourney while Roberts Wesleyan (NY) College (with a 10-6 record coming into today's game) is currently a very likely postseason participant, unless it would happen to lose both its final two regular-season games against a pair of teams that are currently at the bottom of the AMC standings. Coming into tonight's competition, Daemen (9-8 AMC), Point Park (8-8 AMC) and Mt. Vernon Nazarene (8-9 AMC) were each battling for the final spot in the AMC postseason event.
Despite its loss to Cedarville (12-5 AMC) this evening, Malone (11-6) could still earn the top seed in the AMC Qualifying Tournament with a victory at Mt. Vernon Nazarene on Saturday IF Cedarville also loses to visiting Notre Dame (OH) College (10-18, 5-11 AMC) that evening. In this scenario, Malone would win the tiebreaker for that top seed, either head to head with Cedarville (in which both teams would finish at 12-6 in the AMC), or in a three-way with Cedarville and Roberts Wesleyan, should Roberts Wesleyan win its final two contests to also finish at 12-6 in the AMC.
Even if Cedarville wins on Saturday to secure the top seed, Malone, with a win of its own on Saturday, would nail down a home contest in the first-round of the AMC Qualifying Tournament.
