By Jim Henry
jhenry@joplinglobe.com
Missouri Southern displayed balanced scoring in its weekend basketball victories over Missouri S&T; and Haskell in the Chatters/Comfort Inn Classic at Pittsburg State.
“Our two leading scorers Friday night were Skyler (Bowlin) and Mariun (Price), and it was Jason (Adams) and ‘Q’ (DaRell Crittendon) on Saturday,” Lions head coach Robert Corn said. “We have a chance to be a balanced team.”
The Lions make their home debut tonight at 7 against Central Bible College from Springfield. It’s the first of three home games this week for the Lions, who are the host for the Freeman Sports Medicine/Chris Tucker Memorial Classic on Friday and Saturday.
“It's always good to play home games,” Corn said. “We need to continue to try to grow and build on some things.
“We need to consistently get better on defense. We showed flashes on Friday night, but when we played Saturday night, our defense was not nearly as good. Our approach on Saturday (against Haskell) was like it was against Livin’ The Dream. We played not to beat them but to outscore them, and that is going to get us in trouble down the road.
“Against Missouri S&T; we played to beat them, and our defense was generating our offense. Saturday night we got very little out of our defense, and our halfcourt defense actually was a lot better than our fullcourt defense. We have to learn to play hard and not take possessions off.”
Central Bible is 3-3 after Saturday's 81-57 home victory over Barclay.
Chris Weber, 6-foot-2 sophomore, scored 23 points and grabbed 16 rebounds to lead CBC.
Blake Hanson, 5-11 junior, netted 17 points, and Caleb Willis and Cameron Tilus, both 6-6, scored 12 points apiece.
CBC’s three victories have come against Bible colleges and have been by an average of 33 points.
Ironically, CBC has lost by an average of 33 points against Park College, Columbia College and Oklahoma Wesleyan.
Kirk Hanson is in his 31st year as CBC head coach.
CBC has won three NCCAA national championships and 19 regional championships. It has had 22 20-win seasons under Hanson.
