By OAKLEE FIELDER
Sports Editor
Last week, NWOSU’s men’s basketball played an away game against the SWOSU Bulldogs and a home game against the OBU Bison. The men are coming off a loss against the Ouachita Baptist Tigers, losing by only one point.
NWOSU 75-SWOSU 83
The game against SWOSU started off with two free throws for the Bulldogs, making it a 0-2 game.
Cam McDowell responded with a three pointer to take the lead. SWOSU then went on a run to make it 3-8. The Rangers came back and tied it up at eight. The first half continued to be a close back and forth between the two teams. After a long period of both teams taking and losing the lead, with two minutes left, the Bulldogs took the lead by five.
The Rangers responded with a layup by McDowell. The Bulldogs shot a three and increased their lead to six, Daraun Clark responded with a three to make the game a two point game at the end of the half.
The start of the second half was slow for the Rangers, and the Bulldogs had an eight-point lead less than two minutes into the half. The two teams went back and forth once again as the Bulldogs slowly increased their lead during the back and forth.
The Rangers were able to stall them and the score difference was stuck at eight and eleven.
The Rangers were able to shrink their lead to six, but the Bulldogs did not back down. Although NWOSU was able to shrink the opposing teams’ lead, they could never take it from them.
SWOSU held onto the lead and increased it once again to eleven with twenty seconds left in the game.
In an attempt to make it look better, Clark hit a three pointer with thirteen seconds remaining and the game ended 75-83 with an SWOSU win.
OBU 98-NWOSU 87
The Rangers’ next game was against the Oklahoma Baptist University Bison.
The game started with a layup by Max Alexander and a field goal by Kabeya Tshibangu to start the game off on the right foot for the Rangers. The Bison responded with five points to take the lead from the Rangers.
NWOSU took it right back and had the lead by two. The Rangers increased their lead to six at the fourteen-minute mark in the first half. NWOSU held onto that lead, although it shrank. With six minutes left in the half, the Bison took the lead from the Rangers and they ran away with it.
Their lead got to ten before NWOSU reeled them back. At the end of the half, OBU was up 40-34.
The second half started off with OBU running off again. Five minutes into the final half, their lead was at eighteen over the Rangers.
That lead did not shrink for some time, at the nine-minute mark the Bisons’ lead was nineteen.
The Rangers finally figured out something was wrong and they started to shrink the Bisons’ lead. Unfortunately, the Bisons knew what they were doing and didn’t let the Rangers shrink their lead too much. With four minutes left the lead had been more than halved and only eight points separated the two teams. The lead was shrunk again to five, but the Bison went right back to scoring and increased their lead to thirteen with just over a minute left.
The game ended 98-87 for the Bison and they left Alva as the victors. Northwestern now sits at the seventh position after losing two games. They sit under SWOSU, who has the same conference record as the Rangers, overall one less loss.
The Rangers sit above Southern Arkansas, who they play next on February 21 in Magnolia, Arkansas. They will also play against the University of Arkansas at Monticello on February 23 in Monticello, Arkansas.
McDowell currently leads the GAC conference in scoring, with 581 points scored and an average 26.4. Max Alexander sits in third in the GAC conference scoring list, with 503 for himself and an average of 19.2.