Game Notes: California Lutheran University @ North Central College (11/10/21)

Final Score
CLU 80, NCC 79

Game Summary
This was a heartbreaker, but it started well enough as the Cardinals (0-1) scored the game's first five points and held the Kingsmen (1-0) off the board for the first six minutes before their offense finally woke up. It was tight for a while, with a couple lead changes and a few ties before the Cardinals started to separate a little bit with a 12-3 run to build a nine point lead with about five and a half to go in the opening half. But the Kingsmen stuck around, cutting the deficit to three a couple times before going into the break down 35-30 to North Central. The Cardinals started the second half hot, scoring nine of the first ten points within the first two minutes to build a 13 point advantage, their high water mark of the night. But again, the Kingsmen did not go away, as they slowly chipped into NCC's lead, making it a one possession game with about 12 minutes to play, and taking their first lead since the first half about a minute later. The teams traded half a dozen one point leads after that before Cal Lutheran took its biggest lead of the night at five. But the Cardinals had a strong push left in them, and they retook the lead with an 8-0 run with about four minutes to play. North Central had a pair of four point leads in the final two minutes, but both times the Kingsmen responded with a three to cut it to one. After a Cardinal miss with 20 seconds to go, the Kingsmen got a foul call with 5.3 ticks left, hit both free throws to take a one point lead, and the Cardinals' last gasp was well covered and fell short, giving the Kingsmen a great start to their three game Chicago swing.

Key Players

• Mason Johnson (CLU): 7-15 FG (1-3 3PT), 6-10 FT; 21 pts, 8 reb (2 off), 6 ast, 3 stl. There were a number of heroes for the Kingsmen in this one, but we'll go with the guy who gave them the win. Johnson had the ball down on the baseline on their final possession, drew a foul with 5.3 seconds left, and despite Merner getting loud, he calmly hit both free throws (even with a North Central timeout in between) that gave his team the final lead of the game, and the one that held.
• Jacob Alonzo (CLU): 6-9 FG (1-1 3PT), 3-3 FT; 16 pts, 4 reb (3 off), 6 ast, 2 stl. Alonzo was one of the smaller guys on the court last night, but he certainly didn't play like it. He hit several big shots in this one, and the rebounding numbers (especially offensively) were strong. He also distributed the ball well and got a couple steals in the Kingsmen's 3-2 zone trap.
• Matt Helwig (NCC): 9-16 FG (1-3 3PT), 2-2 FT; 21 pts, 8 reb (2 off), 2 ast, 2 stl. I almost went with Blaise Meredith (18 and 9), but Matt was probably better for more of the game. Most of his points came when the Cardinals were able to break the trap, as they found a ton of easy layups in this one. The rebounding numbers were nice too. Hopefully this is a good start to the season for him.

Key Stats

• NCC: 15-24 FT (62.5%). Look, when you lose by a single point, this is the number I'm going to go look at, and it backs up the result. The big miss for me was when Blaise Meredith was fouled on a made three with 90 seconds to go, and he couldn't cash in on the four point play. That would have gotten the Cardinals to 80, and forced overtime assuming Cal Lutheran went with the same play they did down one. To be fair to Blaise though, he wasn't the only one who struggled; Ethan Helwig hit just one of four freebies in his first game as a Cardinal, Blaise missed a couple others, and Brian Johnson split a pair earlier in the game. But more alarming...
• CLU: 32 points off 21 NCC turnovers. This was the other big number. The Cardinals got sloppy against that zone trap, often getting themselves stuck in corners and having to try to bail themselves out, only to cough it up. 12 of North Central's 21 turnovers came in the second half, with those 12 giveaways leading to 20 Kingsmen points.

Final Thoughts

Photo by Mark Black

Honorable mention stat: 69 of Cal Lutheran's 80 points came off the bench. I don't think I'll ever see a higher percentage of scoring come from reserves, probably not even in a System game.

This one hurt. The Cardinals led for a majority of this game, and while I won't say they were in control necessarily, the lead was such that they had a good margin for much of it. I don't know if they took their feet off the gas or what, but credit the Kingsmen for coming into a tough building and gutting out a hard-fought win. They continue their Chicago trip with a game at IIT on Friday and close it out at North Park on Sunday.

For North Central, this is a tough pill to swallow; normally there's a clunker or two at home, especially at the start of the year. They'll have to get ready to get back to work, because they're going to be running a ton on Saturday as they head out to take on Greenville and The System.