By RYAN SHUMAKER
Sports Editor
Northwestern’s basketball team was knocked out of the Great American Conference championship tournament on Thursday when they were defeated by Harding University.
Despite playing a solid first half against the conference’s top-seeded team, the Black-and-Red were unable to answer ten second-half threes by the Bison, leading to a 76-61 loss. The loss knocked the Rangers out of the tournament and ended the season in which they finished with a record of 9-18(9-13 GAC.)
The Rangers found themselves down 7-0 within the first minute of game, forcing head coach Brad Franz to call an early timeout. The Rangers regrouped and settled down and took their first lead of the ball game at the 16:08 mark when junior Deiondray Martin hit a three-point basket.
The game would remain close throughout the final minutes of the half with neither team extending a lead behind three points. A jump shot by California native Austin Klug at the 2:00 would give the Rangers a 30-29 lead, which they would maintain all the way into halftime.
11 turnovers in the half were not good enough to take advantage of the usual sharp-shooting Bison’s poor shooting in the first half. The Bison shot eight percent from the three-point line while First Team All-GAC selection Jacob Gibson was held to only two points.
The Bison would make the Rangers pay for not ceasing a big lead when they had the chance in the second half of action. Halftime would mark the last time the Rangers would hold a lead.
After two made free throws from Gibson, back to back three-point buckets would give the Bison a 56-44 lead with just under eight minutes to go in the ball game. After two made free throws from freshman Zach Dumas, the Bison hit yet another three, effectively making the game out of reach for the Rangers.
Klug lead the way for Black-and-Red with 15 points while leading scorer Adrian Motley was held to just five points for the contest. In his final game as a Ranger, senior T’aries Taylor had 11 points for the Black-and-Red.
Looking forward to next year the Rangers should make a huge turn around after a respectable opening year under coach Franz. Motley and Dumas will both return after leading the Rangers in scoring.
Point guard Brandon Green will return to lead the offense, while some incoming help will be expected to back him up next year. After going mostly unnoticed at the beginning of the year, Martin finally earned some extensive playing minutes towards the end of the season and will be looked upon as the main compliment to Motley next season.