{"id":28671,"date":"2024-03-16T22:51:01","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T22:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dominant-paint-presence-powers-fort-lewis-past-lubbock-christian-in-ncaa-tournament\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:36:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:36:53","slug":"dominant-paint-presence-powers-fort-lewis-past-lubbock-christian-in-ncaa-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dominant-paint-presence-powers-fort-lewis-past-lubbock-christian-in-ncaa-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Dominant paint presence powers Fort Lewis past Lubbock Christian in NCAA tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Fort Lewis College Skyhawks compete against Lubbock Christian on Saturday, March 16, 2024 during the first round of the NCAA Division II tournament at West Texas A&M Univerisity's First United Bank Center in Canyon, Texas. (Joe Garcia III\/Special to the Herald)<\/span>Joe Garcia III<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

CANYON, TEXAS-The Fort Lewis men\u2019s basketball team loves the comeback.<\/p>\n

First halves haven\u2019t been its specialty and the Skyhawks have faced large deficits in their last four games. Saturday afternoon against Lubbock Christian was no different. The Skyhawks trailed 15-6 with 14:21 to go in the first half of their first-round game of the South Central regional.<\/p>\n

But once again, Fort Lewis came back with its size inside. The Skyhawks shot 68% in the second half and beat Lubbock Christian 86-72 inside First United Bank Center.<\/p>\n

The Skyhawks had 40 points in the paint compared to the Chaps\u2019 26. Fort Lewis also won the rebound battle 37-29.<\/p>\n

Fort Lewis improved to 29-3 overall after it shot 56% from the field, 39% from the 3-point line and 65% from the free-throw line in the win.<\/p>\n

Lubbock Christian fell to 23-11 overall after it shot 43% from the field, 23% from 3-point range and 87% from the free-throw line in the loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cCredit Lubbock Christian, they\u2019re very hard to play,\u201d Fort Lewis head coach Bob Pietrack said. \u201cThey make you be disciplined and credit Coach Duncan and his staff on a great year. The slow start, I don\u2019t understand why it\u2019s happening to us. It\u2019s like four in a row or five in a row. It\u2019s something we\u2019re going to try to fix but I\u2019m very proud of our team\u2019s effort, energy and then execution pretty much the last 35 minutes of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Junior guard Obi Agbim led the Skyhawks with 16 points on 5-13 shooting from the field, 1-4 from the 3-point line and 5-5 from the free-throw line along with nine rebounds.<\/p>\n

Both Carter and senior center Sekou Dembele combined to finish with 24 points on 11-12 shooting and 13 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Junior forward Brayden Carter was 7-7 from the field and 1-1 from the free-throw to finish with 15 points. Redshirt sophomore forward Amondo Miller Jr. had 14 points on 5-8 shooting from the field, 2-3 from 3-point range and 2-6 from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a buck, he\u2019s a buck in there,\u201d Pietrack said. \u201cSo especially with our size advantage, we wanted to take advantage of it. Brayden did a really nice job and we didn\u2019t get him to the free-throw line but we hope to get him there tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis College junior forward Brayden Carter goes up for a shot against Lubbock Christian on Saturday during the first round of the NCAA Division II tournament at West Texas A&M Univerisity's First United Bank Center in Canyon, Texas. (Joe Garcia III\/Special to the Herald)<\/span>Joe Garcia III<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Lubbock Christian was led by Ethan Duncan\u2019s 16 points on 6-16 shooting from the field, 4-10 from 3-point range along with six rebounds. Kurt Wegscheider also had 15 points for the Chaps.<\/p>\n

Fort Lewis\u2019 3-point defense was impressive because Lubbock Christian was third in Division II in 3-point percentage at 43%. The Skyhawks held it to 8% shooting from downtown in the first half and 33% in the second half.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a really nice job,\u201d Pietrack said about his team\u2019s defense. \u201cEspecially in the first half, we kept them to one 3-pointer. Ethan Duncan, who\u2019s a heck of a player got loose a few times in the second half. After the slow start, I really felt we had them at a jabber\u2019s distance and they\u2019re just they\u2019re a hard team to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fort Lewis\u2019 defense wasn\u2019t strong to start the game. Lubbock Christian was able to get paint touches and score. The Skyhawks couldn\u2019t use their size advantage early and trailed 13-4 with 16 minutes left.<\/p>\n

Miller Jr. was able to get to the basket and draw some fouls with his size and length. Miller made two of his four free throws in this span.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to do anything to give my team a spark,\u201d Miller Jr. said. \u201cDefense, offense whatever, I\u2019m trying to make plays to get us going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller was great in the first 10 minutes. He caused a turnover and finished in transition and then hit a 3-pointer. He had nine points in the first 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

Fort Lewis did a better job defending the 3-point line as Lubbock started out 1-10 from 3-point line. The offense wasn\u2019t as crisp with some costly turnovers. Carter started to get going inside and finished inside twice to cut the Chaps lead to 25-24 with 4:15 left.<\/p>\n

The Skyhawks hit five of six shots toward the end of the second half. Senior guard Junior Garbrah hit a 3-pointer, Dembele finished inside and junior guard Samier Kinsler hit two free throws to give Fort Lewis a 35-29 lead with 1:20 to go. Lubbock Christian struggled to finish inside during this span.<\/p>\n

Fort Lewis started the half with three makes. Duncan hit two 3-pointers though and the Skyhawks led 44-38 with 17:50 to go.<\/p>\n

Agbim had eight points in the first five minutes to keep the breathing room for Fort Lewis.<\/p>\n

Although Duncan hit three 3-pointers and some tough shots, Fort Lewis started the half 10-15 from the field with a bunch of paint touches. Carter finished inside and Fort Lewis led 60-51 with 10:30 to go in the first half.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn any game, the defense breaks down a little bit,\u201d Pietrack said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a baseball glove. The more you play catch with it, the looser it gets, that\u2019s how defense normally works. We got free in the posts a little bit. We were committed to throwing it in and when you have that, it worked out for us tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lubbock Christian had no answers for Carter inside and it looked like the players guarding him had gotten worn down. Carter was 6-6 from the field and Fort Lewis led 66-58 with 6:37 to go.<\/p>\n

The Skyhawks continued to wear down Lubbock Christian and got great looks inside. Junior guard Jhei-R Jones got to the free throw line to push the Skyhawks lead to 82-68 with 1:20 to go.<\/p>\n

It was a return to familiar scenery for Fort Lewis assistant coach Jeff Evans. He was a well-known high school basketball coach in the Amarillo area. Pietrack credited the team\u2019s pressing defensive approach to Evans.<\/p>\n

Fort Lewis plays Colorado Mesa for the third time this season on Sunday at 4 p.m. MT. The Skyhawks have beaten the Mavericks in both of the previous meetings this season with the most recent meeting coming in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament championship.<\/p>\n

bkelly@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Skyhawks move on to face Colorado Mesa on Sunday night<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[600,992,132,28,991,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-28671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-headlines","tag-mens-college-sports","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80491,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28671\/revisions\/80491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28671"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=28671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}