DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – After settling in near the Atlantic Ocean, the 23rd-ranked Concordia University Men’s Basketball team went to the wire in its first game of the Daytona Beach Shootout. The Bulldogs just didn’t have enough offensive firepower in what amounted to a 70-62 loss to No. 8 William Jessup University (Calif.) in a contest played on the campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on Sunday (Dec. 19) evening. Concordia was held to 37.3 percent shooting.
Head Coach Ben Limback’s squad slipped to 11-3 overall in its first action since being rewarded with a top 25 national ranking. The Bulldogs have one more game to play in Daytona Beach.
“I thought we competed hard and laid everything out there,” Limback said. “We just didn’t have a clean game. We turned it over too many times and offensively we were too timid in the first half with some missed bunnies. We guarded much better in the second half but just wasn’t a clean enough game against a team like that.”
The Warriors (14-1), who compete in the Golden State Athletic Conference, will be a handful for everyone they play. They were coming off a 75-69 win over No. 9 Indiana Wesleyan University on Saturday. William Jessup’s athleticism and length played a role in Concordia’s subpar shooting performance (at one point it missed 13 shots in a row in the first half). The Bulldogs grinded through it, tied the game in the second half and got within four points in the final minute. They managed to limit the Warriors to 32.1 percent (9-for-28) shooting in the second half.
William Jessup seemed to stay one step ahead thanks to a big effort off the bench from Tarren Storey-Way (19 points) and the work of Myles Corey (16 points and three steals) and Cashemin Williams (12 points and nine assists). The length and athleticism of the Warriors (seven blocked shots) caused issues throughout the night.
A major storyline was the absence of Concordia budding star Noah Schutte down the stretch. At the 10:18 mark of the second half, Schutte drove the right baseline and flushed home a dunk. At the time, the Bulldogs trailed by just one (49-48) and Schutte (16 points and 10 rebounds) had already notched a double-double. Soon after that, he was helped off the court by two teammates and didn’t return until the very latter stages of the game.
Schutte was the team’s best offensive performer on an evening when Carter Kent (1-for-10 from the floor) and Gage Smith (0-for-10 from the floor) had uncharacteristic outings on the offensive end. Meanwhile, Justin Wiersema put up 14 points and six rebounds and AJ Watson chipped in with five points. Ryan Holt and Klay Uher supplied five points apiece off the bench. Smith totaled nine boards.
The loss halted a three-game win streak for the Bulldogs, who had hopes of claiming a second win this season over a top 10 opponent (defeated then No. 10 Jamestown on Nov. 23). Despite Sunday’s result, Concordia remains a confident locker room.
“There’s a lot of optimism for us,” Limback said. “Some of our best offensive players certainly didn’t play their best. Some of that is due to the way they defended us, but we showed we can compete. That’s a great team we played. That’s the type of team you’re going to see at a national tournament or a conference championship level. We can hang our heads or we can learn from it.”
Concordia will be back in action at the same venue, the ICI Center, on Tuesday for a 1 p.m. CST / 2 p.m. EST tipoff with Rochester University (Mich.) (9-4). Rochester is slated to play against Indiana Wesleyan on Monday.