By Steve Carpenter
HCC Sports Information Director
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Hutchinson Community
College men’s basketball team needed a lift to break a four-game losing
streak.
The Blue Dragons got it
on Wednesday night in the form in a dominating defensive effort that
clamped down on the second-place team in the Jayhawk West.
HCC snapped its skid by
holding Butler to just one field goal in the final 15 minutes of a
rugged 55-48 Jayhawk West victory over Butler at the Sports Arena.
“It’s cliché in sports,
but defense wins games and defense wins championships,” HCC head coach
Ryan Swanson said. “Our offense wasn’t the best tonight, but these guys
found a way to win and they did it with terrific defense. To hold a team
like Butler to 11 percent in the second half is a great accomplishment.”
Hutchinson (17-9, 6-6
Jayhawk West) held Butler to a season-low 23.4 percent shooting (15 of
64), including just four field goals on 36 attempts in the second half.
The Grizzlies raced out
to a 7-0 lead just 3 minutes, 3 seconds into the game. They scored just
41 points over the final 37 minutes. The Grizzlies led 31-27 at
halftime, but were outscored 28-17 in the second half, marking the first
time this season that Hutchinson has come back to win a game after
trailing at halftime.
The Blue Dragons held
Butler to the second-lowest point total in the long series between the
two teams since 1952. Plus it avenges an embarrassing 86-60 loss at El
Dorado on Jan. 14.
“This was an incredible
win for us,” freshman Darius Johnson-Odom said. “Butler is No. 2 in the
conference and they got us pretty good at their place, so this was a
really big win, especially with how we’ve been playing.”
“Defense carried us,”
freshman Dominique Rutledge said. “We said at halftime that defense was
going to have to carry us. We got a couple of transition buckets off of
defense and that helped a lot.”
The 55 points was the
lowest point total in a Blue Dragon victory since the 2004-05 season
when HCC defeated Butler 54-52.
Sophomore Cliff Dixon
had his sixth double-double of the season with 23 points and 12 rebounds
to lead the Blue Dragons. This was Dixon’s fourth 20-point game in his
last five.
Johnson-Odom added 19
points. Freshman Tom Shirley was next with five points.
The Dragons were just 19
of 52 shooting (36.5 percent) and 4 of 12 from 3-point range. HCC was 13
of 24 from the free-throw line. The Dragons won for the first time this
season when being outrebouneded. Butler had a 53-37 rebounding
advantage, including 24 offensive rebounds. But because of the Dragon
defensive effort, Butler managed just eight second-half points.
“The first time we
played them, we were 2-0 (in the league) and we were feeling pretty good
about ourselves,” Swanson said. “They had a week to prepare, smacked us
in the mouth and we never recovered. I thought we played very hungry
tonight. We didn’t do that the first time.”
Kenyon Milliner had 12
points to lead the Grizzlies (18-7, 7-4), which lost for the seventh
straight time at the Sports Arena. Caleb Walker, who had 29 points in
the first meeting, finished with seven points on Wednesday night.
The game started with an
ominous tone for the Dragons. Back-to-back transition dunks off
turnovers and a Maurice Colter 3-point goal staked Butler to a 7-0 lead
with 16:57 to play in the half. HCC missed its first nine shot attempts
and didn’t have a field goal until Johnson-Odom scored with 12:45 to
play in the half.
HCC completely erased
that early deficit and took its first lead at 15-14 after two Lazarius
Johnson free throws with 10:22 to go in the half. Tied at 24-all, Butler
outscored HCC 7-4 over the final 2:40, and led 31-27 after Luke
Engellken buried a 3-point goal with 1 second left on the clock.
Butler scored on its
first possession of the second half, but HCC went on a 7-0 run and took
a 34-33 lead on a Johnson-Odom 3-pointer with 17:39 to play in the
second half. There were four more lead changes over the next four
minutes, but HCC took the lead for good when Shirley canned a 3-pointer
with 13:21 to go for a 40-37 Blue Dragon lead.
Despite scoring only one
field goal in the final 15 minutes, the Grizzlies were 9 of 12 from the
free-throw line in the second half. HCC led 45-39 with 8:52 to play
after a Javari Williams dunk. Butler cut the Dragon lead to one on two
different occasions, the second came with 4:09 to play after Troy
Pierce’s bucket pulled Butler within 47-46.
The Dragons gained a
two-possession advantage when Dixon converted a three-point play with
2:12 to go for a 50-46 lead. HCC led 53-46 with 1:01 to play and never
let Butler get within one possession in the final minute.
Hutchinson will have its
second conference by on Saturday before traveling to first-place Barton
next Wednesday night.
GAME NOTES
– HCC is now 1-7 when trailing at halftime. … Johnson-Odom moved past
Brandon Gary into fifth place on the HCC freshman scoring list with 550
points. … HCC is now 113-56 vs. butler, including 60-19 in Hutchinson. …
Head coach Ryan Swanson earned his 199th career coaching victory. … HCC
is 14-3 at the Sports Arena this season. … Dixon posted his 20th
collegiate double-double. … Rutledge tied a season high with three
steals.
BOXSCORE
PHOTO
GALLERY
OTHER QUOTES
Head Coach Ryan
Swanson
On breaking the
losing streak …
“We’ve been hurting.
I’ve never questioned their heart during this thing. I question how they
prepare sometimes, but never their heart. They want to win.”
On the one-two punch
of Johnson-Odom and Dixon …
“Cliff and Darius are
guys who can score in bunches and score a variety of ways. The guys did
a good job of feeding them the ball.”
On the fatigue factor
after playing five games in 11 days …
“We are tired. They’ve’
been trying so hard and it’s a huge weight off their back that we don’t
have to sit on that losing streak for an entire week. It will be good to
have a couple of days off heading into the stretch run.”
Freshman Dominique
Rutledge
On breaking the
losing streak …
“This was a big win for
us. We needed us to get going again. It was basically defense. We’ve
talked about it all week. Our whole game plan was to play good defense.”
On falling behind 7-0
early in the game …
“We were never really
worried about it. We had to get a rhythm. Some teams start off fast. We
just kept playing and we got the ‘W.”
Freshman Darius
Johnson-Odom
On breaking the
losing streak …
“We had heart tonight.
We started off bad with some turnovers, but we kept playing. Our defense
carried us the whole game.”
On the defensive
effort …
“We were talking to each
other and communicating. We were playing together. We had each other’s
back. We are a family here and we are going to play hard.”
