LCC Men’s Basketball Update 1-17-2012

The Lamar Community College Runnin’ Lopes men’s basketball team continued its struggles this past weekend dropping their first two sub-region games on the road. Friday night the Lopes dropped one to Laramie County 83-71 and Saturday lost to North Platte 86-75. The Lopes fall to 4-11 overall and 0-2 in the Region IX South Sub-Region.

Friday night the Lopes opened up South sub-region play on the road in Cheyenne, WY. Lamar would struggle the first 20 minutes letting Laramie County start the game 6-0 with all the baskets coming off Lamar turnovers. “We have really struggled at the start of games,” said head coach Adam Schwartz. “For some reason we have not shown up for a first half in three straight games.” The Lopes would go cold from the field and play lackluster defense for the first 20 minutes. LCCC would take a 41-27 lead at the half. Lamar shot 30% from the field while allowing LCCC to connect on 55% of their shots. The second half would prove to be much of the same. Lamar would have a little bit energy and played harder but the deficit was too much to overcome. LCCC took the win 83-71. For the game Lamar shot 36% from the field, Laramie County was 51%. Laramie County won the Rebound war 42-40. LCCC would also have 19 blocked shots for the game. The Lopes were led by 6’9 freshman, Shore Adenekan who finished with 19 points and 14 rebounds. Malcolm Brooks chipped in 14 points and Kenny Peters would finish with 10. Jalen Caoile in just his second game of the season returning from injury would contribute 5 assists. “We just can’t seem to put it all together,” said Coach Schwartz. “We are very inconsistent in our preparation and our effort on the court.”

Saturday night, Lamar travelled to North Platte Community College. Like the previous 2 games Lamar would quickly find themselves down double-digit points. “It looked like our feet were buried in cement,” said Schwartz. Our guys looked like they could not move.” Unlike Friday night, turnovers, not offense would do the Lopes in. Lamar committed 18 turnovers in the first half and again a poor effort defensively contributed the Lopes heading into the locker-room down 52-29 at the half. “We dug ourselves a huge hole,” commented Schwartz. “We just keep hurting ourselves with our inconsistent play.” The second half would be an improvement once again. As the finally played some aggressive defense and attacked the North Platte defense to chip away at the lead. Lamar would cut it to single digits on a few occasions but could never get within 6 points. “There is not going to be many instances where we shoot 58% from the field and hold our opponents to 42% and lose by double digits,” said Coach Schwartz. Lamar was led by 6’0 Sophomore Kenny Peters with 17 points, 8/9 from the free throw line. Malcolm Brooks would finish with 13 points as did Shore Adenekan who also had 6 rebounds. The Lopes committed 29 turnovers and were outrebounded 33-30. “I liked our guys effort in the 2nd half,” said Schwartz. “However we cannot continue to be inconsistent with our effort, effort is 100% non-negotiable and we will address it in practice.”

The lopes take a brief break from sub-region play as they travel to Clarendon College on Wednesday and then get back to sub-region at Northeastern Junior College on Saturday

Dorris, Chloe-Ana
Lamar Community College