News Archives: Wolves Men's Basketball Split Against #1 Ranked Thunder
Tuesday, February 28th, 2017
GPRC Wolves Men’s Basketball hosted the Concordia Thunder this weekend. The men fell to the Thunder Friday night 86-78, but finished the ACAC season with a win Saturday, defeating the North Division 1st place team 95-76.
On Friday night, the Thunder took advantage of the Wolves’ shaky defense to take an early lead. The Wolves gave up a lot of easy shots allowing the Thunder to maintain the lead throughout the game. 4th year graduating player Kenny Johnson rebounded well near the basket and scored well throughout the game. He was named the Wolves player of the game with 31 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists.
Head Coach Thomas Slifka commented that the men “struggled defending a lot of their actions. Concordia is so good at exploiting mistakes. A simple reach or being a foot or two out of position and we were in trouble. They are the best team in our division because of their ability to take advantages of their opponent’s mistakes”.
Saturday night, the Wolves went 19-22 from the FT line and cleaned up some things defensively. Capitalizing on open shot opportunities, the men held on an early lead over the Thunder to finish the season with a win. With 10 Points and 2 rebounds 3rd year graduating player Derek McKnight hit open shots, and defended the Thunder’s best player well and was named the Wolves Player of the Game.
“This was a great way to end our season “said Coach Slifka, “it’s always nice to finish things on a win. I thought a lot of our role players stepped up and provided big minutes today. Everyone contributed something and that always makes winning more fulfilling. I’m very proud of the effort our guys put forth all year. Although we didn’t make our goal of reaching playoffs, I loved how our team came together throughout the course of the year. We are going to miss the players leaving our program. Their contributions to GPRC and the community will be greatly missed”.
