BOLIVAR, MO. — On the first possession Tuesday night, Emporia State swung the ball around the perimeter and it ended up in the hands of a referee standing on the sideline.
Everyone in a black jersey was draped in coverage, and, hey, the guy in black and white stripes was open.
On the other end, MIAA leading scorer Matt Rogers spent most of the game so open, it became his own personal game of horse. Rogers scored a career-high 37 points, and once again, the Hornets showed they’re just not ready to play with the best of the MIAA, losing 81-70 to fifth-ranked Southwest Baptist.
Emporia State (15-8, 9-7 MIAA) is 0-4 against the top two teams in the league — Southwest Baptist and Central Missouri — and lost the four games by a combined 88 points.
Tuesday’s score was deceiving, because the final was the closest the score ever got in the second half. The Hornets wilted under SBU’s pressure early and never had a chance.
“They’re good,” ESU coach David Moe said, “and you’re not going to come in here and have a chance to win at the end if you’re not fully in control of what you’re doing — if you allow them to pressure into doing what they want you to do instead of what you want to do.”
What the Hornets wanted to do was work the shot clock and wear down the Bearcats until they allowed an open shot. What happened instead was that the Bearcats pressure forced the Hornets to get in a hurry, take contested shots or turn the ball over.
During a 6-minute, 45-second stretch in the first half, Emporia State went scoreless and missed nine straight shots. Near the end of the half, the Hornets had four turnovers in five possessions, leading to easy transition baskets for the Bearcats. They capitalized with an 11-2 run that stretched their lead to 21 and negated a solid defensive effort by the Hornets in the first half.
“We did a good job in the halfcourt defensively, but we were atrocious in transition because our offense was so bad it was giving them easy ones in transition,” Moe said.
With the Bearcats making it difficult to make any passes, the Hornets quit moving the ball and tried to attack the basket off the dribble, which was exactly what the Bearcats wanted. They funneled the ESU guards right to Rogers, and he had three blocks and changed several other shots.
“We’ve got a certain way that we’ve got to play that we haven’t figured out how to play against teams that are aggressive against us — at home and on the road lately,” Moe said. “We’ve got to make sure that we trust our teammates, trust what’s going on out there and not feel like you have to do it by yourself.”
The Hornets started the second half playing offense the way Moe wanted — moving the ball and waiting to take open shots. Lamar Wilbern, Dustin Andrews and Robert Moores made back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers, but they failed to get stops on the defensive end.
“After we got down 20 points, it takes an extra toll on your body because now you’ve got to work extra hard,” ESU guard Tim Niles said. “So I think that was our downfall.”
ESU’s three 3-pointers cut the lead to 12, but it was back up to 20 after two straight SBU 3-pointers and a layup by D’Ante Harris. Harris blew by Wilbern and Andrews on the baseline, both players assuming the other would stop the ball, which led to an ESU timeout by an angry Coach Moe.
“Had we come out in the second half with the same intensity we started the game with, I thought we could have climbed back into the game, but we didn’t,” Moe said. “We came out with no effort at all defensively and scored some buckets and gave up some easy ones.”
Rogers has probably never had an easier time scoring. Guarded by Andrews for most of the first matchup at White Auditorium, he was held to a season-low nine points. He matched up with Emporia State’s big men most of the night on Tuesday, and he made five open 3-pointers and had three dunks.
“I think he probably had a chip on his shoulder from last time,” Moores said. “He shot well today. We let him shoot a lot of open jumpers from the tip. We let him get comfortable and he got in a rhythm early and then it’s hard to stop somebody like that when they get in a rhythm.”
The Hornets are not the first team to get lit up by Rogers and the Bearcats. They are 11-0 at home and the 11-point win on Tuesday was their closest of the season at home.
Moe might not have been banking on a loss, but he entered the game saying that his team needed to win four of its last six games in the regular season to make the NCAA tournament. With Tuesday’s loss, the magic number is now four of five.
“Every game we’re in now has a tournament-like mentality, unless we lose at home to Pitt State. Then we’re playing for seeding,” Moe said. “But right now we’ve still got a chance, but we’ve got to get better. If we don’t get better, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to learn from mistakes, and I thought throughout the course of this game we did get better.”
Tuesday at Meyer Center
Emporia State 22 48 — 70
SW Baptist 39 42 — 81
EMPORIA STATE (15-8, 9-7 MIAA)
Niles 5-7 4-4 18, Moores 3-10 7-9 15, Wilbern 5-13 0-0 12, Holthaus 4-6 0-0 8, Ping 2-3 0-1 4, Box 2-6 0-0 4, Moore 1-2 2-2 4, Andrews 1-5 0-0 3, Allen 1-5 0-0 2, Pyle 0-0 0-0 0, Boswell 0-0 0-0 0, Stout 0-0 0-0 0, Burdolski 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 24-57 13-16 70.
SOUTHWEST BAPTIST (19-3, 12-3)
Rogers 12-18 8-15 37, Brock 2-3 8-8 13, Harris 5-10 0-0 11, Harris 5-7 0-0 10, Kovacevich 4-7 0-1 8, Dougherty 0-1 1-2 1, Jo. Tiemeyer 0-2 1-2 1, Ja. Tiemeyer 0-0 0-0 0, Burgette 0-0 0-0 0, Gordon 0-0 0-0 0, Logan 0-0 0-0 0, Mardis 0-0 0-0 0, Brown 0-0 0-0 0, Clemons 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 28-49 18-28 81.
3-point goals — Emporia State 9-18 (Niles 4-4, Wilbern 2-2, Moores 2-4, Andrews 1-5, Box 0-2, Holthaus 0-1), Southwest Baptist 7-19 (Rogers 5-9, Harris 1-5, Brock 1-2, Dougherty 0-1, Kovacevich 0-2). Fouled out — Emporia State: Wilbern; Southwest Baptist: None. Rebounds — Emporia State 28 (Box, Wilbern 5), Southwest Baptist 32 (Rogers 7, Harris 7). Assists — Emporia State 6 (Andrews, Moores, Allen 2), Southwest Baptist 18 (Brock 5). Total fouls — Emporia State 21, Southwest Baptist 16. Att. — 1,330.