UMC Men’s Basketball Wins Big Over Concordia-Moorhead

Minnesota Crookston Men’s basketball won the final game of the Golden Eagle Basketball Classic over Concordia-Moorhead (NCAA Division III) 94-65 in a non-conference game played at Lysaker Gymnasium in Crookston.

Concordia scored the first five points of the game before UMC’s Chase Knickerbocker (Sr. Annandale) made back-to-back three-pointers to give the Golden Eagles their first lead 6-5 three minutes into the game.  Over the next five minutes, the teams battled with several lead changes, but Concordia built a 19-14 lead with over 11 minutes left in the half.  UMC started to get the offense going, by attacking the basket and Malcolm Cohen (Jr. Detroit, MI) made two free throws, Brian Sitzmann (Fresh. Savage) added two free throws and the Golden Eagles took the lead on a Cohen basket in the paint for a 20-19 lead with 10:19 left in the first half.  Concordia regained the lead with two baskets (23-19) before UMC answered with a 14-0 run.  The run included two Ben Juhl (Soph. Clive, IA) free throws, a Gable Smith (Sr. Lodi, Wis) dunk, a Sitzman jump shot, a Juhl layup, a Knickerbocker layup and a Harrison Cleary (Jr. Oak Creek, Wis) layin for a 32-23 lead with 6:08 remaining.  UMC continued to pull away the rest of the half and took a 41-25 lead into halftime.  After a slow offensive start to the game, UMC shot 47 percent from the field (14-30) and 10-12 from the free throw line (83 percent) in the first half.  Concordia shot 37 percent (11-30) from the field and didn’t shoot a free throw in the half. “I think it takes teams a little time to figure each other out, we don’t play these guys that much and part of it is shots falling or not falling, but once we got the flow of the game and guys started moving around offensively things started to click,” said UMC head coach Dan Weisse.
The Golden Eagles continued to pull away in the second half with the Cobbers never closing the deficit to less than 15 over the final 20 minutes of the game. Ben Juhl led the way for the Minnesota Crookston offense with 20 points while Harrison Cleary added 19 points as the Golden Eagles won their fourth straight game. “I thought our guys, they really took care of business,” said Dan Weisse. “It was a business-like attitude on back-to-back nights and I’m really proud of them for that. I think our defense kind of led the way. Our offense got clicking and offense is fun, but if we want to get to where we want to get to in this league, we’ve really got to clamp team’s down. 

Minnesota Crookston improves to 4-1 and returns to the court on Wednesday, November 21 when UMC travels to San Juan, Puerto Rico for the Puerto Rico Basketball Classic where the Golden Eagles will take on Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico at 1 p.m. Concordia-Moorhead falls to 1-2.