PITTSBURG, Kan. — Pittsburg State men’s basketball took a 20-17 advantage near the nine-minute mark of the first half and never relinquished it as the Gorillas earned a physical 83-67 win over Missouri Southern in a game that saw 52 total fouls called on Saturday at John Lance Arena.
“This is a game that means a lot to a lot of people,” Pittsburg State’s Bobby Arthur-Williams Jr. said. “It’s our rival. They are 35 minutes down the road from us. It’s a game that we definitely want to win, and we want to win not just for ourselves, but for our community.”
Pittsburg State (5-4, 5-4 MIAA) shot 53.6 percent from the field (15-28) and 50 percent from the perimeter (4-8) on the way to a 40-32 cushion by the intermission. The Gorillas finished the game shooting 51.9 from the floor in the win and were 8-of-18 from the perimeter.
“We are a very unselfish group,” PSU’s Martin Vogts said. “We just spread the ball to everyone. Our best (attribute) is we find whoever has the hot hand. That is why we shoot so well, I think.”
Equally as important, the Gorillas’ effort on defense limited the Lions (4-4, 4-4) to a 40.7 percent shooting clip from the field (11-27) in both halves, with MSSU shooting 33 percent from deep (3-9) through the first 20 minutes before shooting 1-for-11 from the perimeter in the second half.
“I thought our defense was the key,” Pittsburg State coach Kim Anderson said. “They only scored 67 points, and our defense hasn’t been that good this year to hold a team down to that number. I was really proud of the way we guarded.”
Southern, which was without Winston Dessesow and Christian Bundy, held a 17-13 lead with 11:54 following a Cam Martin 3-pointer. Pittsburg State scored the next seven points behind a mid-range jumper from Zach Burch and a 3-pointer from Quentin Hardrict Jr., who finished with 10 points and a team-high five assists, to give the Gorillas a 20-17 advantage.
Pittsburg State pushed the lead as much as nine, 33-24, in the first half when Cameron Huefner scored inside at the 4:27 mark. PSU ultimately took an eight-point cushion into the half and quickly turned the lead into double digits less than a minute into the second half on a four-point play by Martin Vogts.
The Gorillas extended the lead to a game-high 16 points on a 3-pointer from RJ Forney Jr. with 13:45 to play to make the score 54-38.
Back-to-back scores in the paint by Martin with eight minutes left trimmed the Gorillas’ lead to 10, with the Lions cutting the deficit to single digits, 65-57, on a pair of makes from the charity stripe moments later.
“Missed free throws, and I thought there were some opportunities where we had wide-open looks and weren’t able to convert, and we were turning the basketball over,” Southern coach Jeff Boschee said about his team’s inability to make a bigger run at the lead. “We switched to the zone and weren’t getting out or understanding our principles on where we are supposed to be when the ball goes to certain spots on the floor.”
That would be as close as Southern would get, with Vogts knocking down a 3-pointer with less than seven minutes left to push the lead back to 11. Pittsburg State eventually pushed the lead back to 16 on two free throws from Vogts with 3:27 left in regulation, ending any bid for a Lions’ rally.
“I thought it was big,” Anderson said of his team responding when Southern cut the lead to eight. “I thought we were struggling. We were trying to find combinations. … I don’t know how long we went without a bucket or how many possessions we went without a bucket, but it was a few. They took advantage of it. Fortunately, we got a shot down and were able to continue to hold them.”
STAT LEADERS
Vogts led Pittsburg State with 26 points, 20 coming in the second half, on 8-of-14 shooting from the field with five makes coming from beyond the arc. Arthur-Williams Jr., who scored 15 points in the first half, finished with 22 points. Both players closed with a team-high eight rebounds and combined for seven assists and three steals.
“I thought Bobby came out and played really well,” Anderson said. “We did some things to get him some shots and he made them. Martin was very consistent throughout the game. He made 3-point shots and handled the ball pretty well.”
Martin led Southern with 33 points on 9-of-18 shooting from the field and 12-of-21 scoring from the free-throw line. It was his third consecutive game with 30 or more points scored, and it moved him into sixth place (1,672 points) on the MSSU all-time scoring list, surpassing Skyler Bowlin and Marquis Addison. He added a game-high 11 rebounds to finish with a double-double.
Keryn Collins, making his first start of the season, scored a career-high 14 points for the Lions.
UP NEXT
Pittsburg State travels to Emporia State for a 7:30 p.m. tip on Jan. 14.
Missouri Southern travels to Washburn for a 7:30 p.m. tip on Jan. 14.
