Northwest Missouri’s Hunter Henry kept yelling for his teammates to go under ball screens when Emporia State’s Robert Moores dribbled near the top of the key on Wednesday night.
The Bearcats challenged Moores and the Hornets to make shots, almost questioning the legitimacy of the Hornets’ 4-1 start and hot shooting as of late.
Moores made Hunter and the Bearcats pay, draining five 3-pointers, and the Hornets made a statement to any of their doubters in a 79-56 win at White Auditorium.
“I know we’re going to be a force to be reckoned with,” Moores said. “We were ranked eighth in our league and we came out here to prove a point.”
The MIAA coaches did rank the Hornets eighth in the preseason poll, but they had legitimate reasons to do so. The Hornets lost six seniors from last year’s team and their top five scorers this season are all newcomers.
Even coach David Moe wasn’t sure what he had at the MIAA media day. Moe was not singing his team’s praises days after a trip to Central Oklahoma for a preseason scrimmage.
“You look back a little over a month ago, we went to Central Oklahoma and got destroyed,” Moe said. “We’ve gotten so much better from then, and I knew we were getting better.”
It was even tough to get a read on the Hornets as it looked like they had vastly improved over the past week. They won by a combined 71 points in two games last week, but both wins were against NAIA teams.
Early on Wednesday night, it looked as if the Hornets were about to get an MIAA wakeup call. Northwest Missouri controlled the game early, and the Hornets had five turnovers before they scored their second basket of the game.
“I think we were just a little bit too excited,” Lamar Wilbern said. “We just had to play within ourselves and take our time and work the offense.”
After Northwest’s DaJaun Harris made a jumper to take a 19-13 lead, the Hornets went on a 7-0 run and took the lead when Moores found Wilbern for a wide open 3-pointer.
The Hornets outscored the Bearcats 21-10 over the final 9:04 of the first half and went into halftime with some confidence and a 34-29 lead.
Their confidence continued to grow in the second half. They opened the half on a 11-0 run with Wilbern scoring the first four, Moores the next five and Shang Ping the final two on a jump hook in the lane.
“The rim seemed like it got big for a while,” Wilbern said. “We were in a flow and confident and just started making shots.”
The Hornets kept making shots and extended their lead to 62-37 during a 17-2 run. They opened the second half making 16 of their first 20 shots, including six 3-pointers.
“I’ve played here for five years, and once they hit one, they just feed off the energy and the crowd,” Northwest’s Henry said. “There was nothing we could do about it.”
The Bearcats came into the game as the top defensive team in the MIAA. Opponents were averaging 25.5 turnovers and scoring 55.8 points, both best in the conference.
The Hornets had only three turnovers in the second half, and the Bearcats struggled to guard the ESU guards in space. The Hornets’ pick-and-rolls and dribble-drive kickouts led to open shots.
Emporia State was extremely balanced on offense with four players scoring in double figures. Moores led the way with 23 and Wilbern added 14. Jeremiah Box, who came into the game as the Hornets’ top scorer, scored 11 points, Ping had 10 and Adam Holthaus was one point shy of a fifth player finishing in double figures.
The Hornets’ unselfishness was most evident in the fact that they had 19 assists on 27 field goals.
“When we branch off and do things individually, we tend to struggle a little bit,” Moe said. “It’s been a great reward system because we’ve played well when we’ve done the right things.”
It’s going to be tough for anyone to sleep on the Hornets now that they’re 5-1 and 1-0 in the MIAA with the win over Northwest Missouri. The Bearcats are ranked 21st nationally and won the MIAA conference tournament last season. They also had won eight of the last nine meetings with Emporia State.
Of course, Moe was there after the game to not let his players’ heads get too big.
“At this point we’ve won one out of 20 conference games, and there’s a lot of season to go,” Moe said. “We’ve got a long ways to go and a lot of room to get better, and hopefully we’ll continue to get better. We’ve got to get better as time goes.
“Yeah, it’s encouraging. These guys have seemed to have bought in and we’re going to have a lot more adversity come our way that we’ve got to make sure we battle through.”
Wednesday at White Auditorium
Northwest Missouri 29 27 — 56
Emporia State 34 45 — 79
NORTHWEST MISSOURI (3-2, 0-1 MIAA)
Carter 3-10 1-2 7, Henry 9-17 5-6 25, Larsen 1-7 0-0 2, Floyd 1-3 0-0 2, Harris 4-11 3-6 11, Haarman 0-2 0-0 0, Petersen 1-1 0-0 2, Allen 0-1 0-0 0, Haake 1-4 1-1 3, Reinders 2-3 0-0 4. Totals 22-59 10-15 56.
EMPORIA STATE (5-1, 1-0)
Ping 5-6 0-0 10, Box 5-13 0-3 11, Andrews 1-2 2-2 4, Boswell 0-0 0-0 0, Wilbern 6-10 0-0 14, Stout 0-1 0-0 0, Burdolski 0-0 0-0 0, Allen 0-0 0-0 0, Moores 6-11 6-7 23, Niles 2-7 2-2 8, Pyle 0-0 0-0 0, Moore 0-0 0-0 0, Holthaus 2-3 5-7 9. Totals 27-53 15-21 79.
3-point goals — Northwest Missouri 2-8 (Henry 2-3, Larsen 0-1, Floyd 0-1, Harris 0-1, Haarman 0-1, Haake 0-1), Emporia State 10-24 (Moores 5-8, Wilbern 2-3, Niles 2-6, Box 1-6, Andrews 0-1). Fouled out — Northwest Missouri: None; Emporia State: None. Rebounds — Northwest Missouri 35 (Henry 10), Emporia State 31 (Holthaus 8). Assists — Northwest Missouri 12 (Henry 4), Emporia State 19 (Moores 6). Total fouls — Northwest Missouri 22, Emporia State 17. Att. — 2,240.