The start of Emporia State’s practice on Tuesday became a dunking display.
The Hornets were all smiles three days after blowing a 23-point lead and losing a game that they know they should have won at Missouri Southern. Their attitude: What’s done is done. Time to move on, starting tonight against Pittsburg State.
“From our standpoint, we’ve got to win,” ESU coach David Moe said. “We’ve been struggling. We lost a game we should have won, and we can’t allow that to affect us next time out. It’s not unheard of that something like that does, but we’ve been fairly resilient throughout the year.”
Emporia State’s most resilient moment this season came at Pittsburg State. The Hornets played from behind most of the game and won what became a battle of stamina in four overtimes, 102-100.
Other than a couple of blowout losses, the Hornets have had some of their most resilient moments playing from behind. They rallied to beat Nebraska-Omaha twice; rallied to beat Missouri Southern in the two teams’ first meeting, and they rallied to beat Washburn.
But in almost all of those wins, the Hornets experienced lulls that nearly cost them the game. They led by 12 early at Nebraska-Omaha and then blew the lead and had to come back. They were tied with Washburn at half, and then the Ichabods opened the second half on a 14-0 run.
Other than a late-game collapse in a close game at Northwest Missouri that saw the Bearcats close the game on a 14-0 run, the Hornets have been able to overcome their lulls and win. That of course was not the case on Saturday, and it might have finally served as a wake-up call.
“What we’ve got to do is become more consistent throughout the course of the game,” Moe said. “It’s something that we have not shown, the ability to be consistent throughout the course of any game all year, unless consistently getting drubbed by Baptist was the most consistent game we’ve had.”
Saturday’s loss is even more disappointing for the Hornets, because for a half, they were as consistently good as they’d been all year. They built their 23-point lead by valuing every possession, something Moe has been trying to stress.
“The first 25-28 minutes we were pretty good,” Moe said. “We lost it all in six, seven minutes, just an atrocious six- or seven-minute stretch. The positive side is we played at a level against Southern that would allow us to beat anybody in our league or in the country. Now we’ve got to sustain that, and I think we’re getting better.”
The concern becomes that the Hornets do not let the Southern loss affect how they play in the final few weeks of the season. They still have an outside shot at making the NCAA tournament, but they have to move on immediately, which is easier said than done.
Last season when Emporia State lost a game it should have won, the infamous cell phone game against Northwest Missouri, the Hornets lost their next five games. Although Moe sees a correlation, he doesn’t believe this loss will have the same effect.
“We caused that loss at Southern. We have no one to blame but ourselves,” he said. “The Northwest game last year was taken away from us. We had won that game, and the official took it away.”
Tonight will determine whether the Southern loss has any sort of carryover. The Hornets say their morale is good, and in practice, at least, it has only fueled their passion.
“I think since that loss we’ve worked pretty hard,” Jeremiah Box said. “We can’t change the past; we can try to determine what happens in the future, though. We were a little bummed out over the weekend. We couldn’t believe we’d lost that game being up 21, but the last couple days at practice we’ve just rallied together, and I believe we’ve been working pretty hard.
“We’re pretty angry about what happened so we’ve just got to use that and take it out on the other teams.”
ESU women (21-3, 15-2 MIAA) vs. Pittsburg State (17-6, 12-4)
With a win tonight against Pittsburg State, Emporia State will need just one more win to clinch an MIAA championship.
The Gorillas are still in contention for an MIAA title and nearly upset the Lady Hornets earlier this season. Cassondra Boston made a last-second layup, and the Lady Hornets won 78-76 on Jan. 10 in their only game that has come down to the final possession this season.
Emporia State had trouble matching up with Nicole McCombs, who scored 24 points and is the top-scoring post player in the MIAA at 16.5 points per game.