Cloud County Men Take Down #19 Butler, 81-67
The determination and desire to pick up win number 20 on the year was on full display by the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team on Saturday afternoon as the T-Birds did not trail over the final 30 minutes of action to defeat number-19 ranked Butler Community College by a score of 81-67 inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium in Concordia, Kansas on March 2nd.
Bouncing back from a road loss at nationally ranked Cowley on Wednesday evening, CCCC improves to 20-9 overall and 15-8 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while earning their second win of the year over a ranked opponent while Butler drops a second-straight game to fall to 22-7 overall and 17-6 in the KJCCC.
With the top two defenses in the league set to do battle, the game turned into a higher-scoring and faster-paced contest than either team likely expected following a slow start on both offensive ends. After scoring the first three points of the game, Cloud County saw the Grizzlies go on a 6-0 run to force an early T-Bird timeout before tying things up on a made Isaiah Sy three with 16:27 left in the first half. A 9-2 BCCC run turned a 6-6 tie into a 15-8 Butler lead with 13:30 left before halftime as CCCC was forced to play from behind until reclaiming the lead on an Emmanuel Manyuon triple with just over 11 minutes left in the half.
Getting to the free-throw line to score three of their next five points, Cloud County started to build out a lead as another Manyuon three extended the T-Bird advantage to six at 26-20 and eventually 33-24 following a pair of Cheikh Sow free throws. Taking their first double-digit lead of the game with just over three minutes left in the half on a Sy trey, CCCC continued to hit at a high percentage to finish the opening half with a 50 percent (15-of-30) field goal percentage while carrying a 43-36 lead into the half after being held to just 50 total points in their first matchup with BCCC.
A dunk by Butler to open the second half with the possession arrow favoring the Grizzlies to resume action, Cloud County had a quick response by hitting back-to-back threes with Manyuon and Sy putting the T-Birds up 11 at 49-38 just 1:25 into the half. A Sow triple two minutes later extended the CCCC lead to 14 at 54-40 as nine of Cloud County's first 11 points of the half came from beyond the arc to allow the T-Birds to extend their lead to 17 at 59-42 with 15:42 left in the game. Butler responded by going on a 12-3 run to get back within single digits at 62-54 three minutes later before seeing a pair of Ja'ron Briggs Jr. free-throws start a 7-0 run that saw all seven Cloud County points come at the charity stripe. During the run, BCCC was held scoreless for a span of 5:06 while being held without a field goal from the 13:07 mark all the way to the 4:04 mark of the second half. The lead continued to grow for Cloud County to eventually eclipse the 20-point mark with 2:20 left in the game which allowed CCCC to put things on cruise control the rest of the way and settle for a 14-point win.
After seeing Butler shoot 60.9 percent (14-of-23) from the floor in the first half, the Cloud County defense cracked down in the second half to hold the Grizzlies to just a 31.0 percent (nine-of-29) field goal percentage in the second half shooting 50 percent (26-of-52) from the field in the game by hitting on half of their shots in both halves. Three-point shooting was also effective for CCCC on Saturday after going 12-of-27 (44.4 percent) from beyond the arc while seeing the Grizzlies go six-of-18 (33.3 percent). Points off turnovers favored Butler 15-6 while Cloud County returned the favor with a 14-2 advantage in second-chance points while points in the paint was a 28-26 edge for the T-Birds.
Four Cloud County starters worked their way into double-figures which included a game-high 23 points from Briggs Jr. who finished one rebound shy of a double-double. Sow had 18 points and 10 rebounds to record the lone double-double of the game while Manyuon scored 19 points in 37 minutes of action with Sy adding 12 points on four-of-seven shooting. Butler also had four players in double-figures and were led by a team-best 17 from Charles McClennahan Jr.
What's Next?
With the number-five seed in the upcoming NJCAA Region VI Tournament secured, Cloud County will conclude its regular season on the road against arguably one of the hottest teams in the KJCCC in Northwest Kansas Technical College. Since the Mavericks loss to the T-birds back on January 20th, NWKT has won six of their past eight games and are 7-4 in the second time around the KJCCC double-round-robin schedule with their losses coming to the top-four teams in the KJCCC standings. The most recent game for Northwest Tech was an 88-77 road win at Pratt as the Mavericks are locked into the number-seven seed in the Region VI Tournament with the eight hosting institutions officially locked in.