With a road trip that will last more than a month on the docket for the HLG men’s basketball team, the Trojans will have to reach back a little bit to remember what it is like to play in Porter Gymnasium.
After Tuesday night’s 73-61 victory against the Iowa Wesleyan Tigers, the Trojans will be able to look back and smile.
“Hopefully this will be a springboard for us going into the weekend and into the road trip,” HLG men’s head basketball coach Jason Durst said. “Our schedule typically puts us in a position where we have a lot of road games in November. This year, it is just more than usual. But it’s good for us because, in the second semester when we travel for conference, it will be nothing unusual for us.”
The Trojans opened up the game with a slow start. But the height advantage that helped the Trojans so much the week before against the Culver-Stockton Wildcats helped HLG slowly build a lead that they held for the majority of the night.
However, Durst said that the height advantage didn’t help his team as much as he would have liked to have seen. While the Trojans had 25 defensive rebounds on the night, led by Brian Gilbert with six, the team also gave up 15 offensive boards to the Tigers, a number that Durst said he hopes doesn’t become a pattern.
“I think we could have been a little bit stronger,” Durst said. “Against a team where you have a size advantage, you would assume that wouldn’t be an issue. That’s certainly something we are going to have to be concerned about. When we play against teams in the future, they are going to see that and they are going to crash the boards harder.”
Coming into the close of the first half, the Trojans appeared to have six-point lead locked up. But a last second trey by the Tigers, one of the eight they made in 29 attempts, cut that deficit in half and left Iowa Wesleyan celebrating going into the locker room.
It was that shot, Durst said, that took the intensity out of the Trojans’ offensive attack when the second half commenced. The Trojans struggled to find the bottom of the bucket for the first five minutes, allowing the Tigers to Stay within three points.
“It was a momentum swing,” Durst said. “I hope we are not a slow-starting team, but in both halves in our last two games, we have been pretty slow out of the gates.”
A large portion of the night’s point total was due to the efforts of Gilbert, who led the team with 24 points.
The Trojans’ 73 points didn’t come without a price. As the game waned into its last few minutes, Kyle Pickett picked up a technical foul, finishing a run of rather physical fouls for both teams. Durst said that sort of physicality is to be expected, especially in the later portion of the season.
“Our big guys are not the most physical people themselves,” Durst said. “But we have to understand that is the way it is going to be. Against good teams, it’s going to be a little more physical of a game and a little more rough around the basket.”
The next game for the Trojans will be this Friday when the team travels to Seward, Neb., to take on York College as part of the Concordia University Cattle Classic. The next home game for the Trojans will not be until Dec. 14, when they take on Missouri Valley College. Tip-off for that game is set for 7:30 p.m.
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With a road trip that will last more than a month on the docket for the HLG men’s basketball team, the Trojans will have to reach back a little bit to remember what it is like to play in Porter Gymnasium.
After Tuesday night’s 73-61 victory against the Iowa Wesleyan Tigers, the Trojans will be able to look back and smile.
“Hopefully this will be a springboard for us going into the weekend and into the road trip,” HLG men’s head basketball coach Jason Durst said. “Our schedule typically puts us in a position where we have a lot of road games in November. This year, it is just more than usual. But it’s good for us because, in the second semester when we travel for conference, it will be nothing unusual for us.”
The Trojans opened up the game with a slow start. But the height advantage that helped the Trojans so much the week before against the Culver-Stockton Wildcats helped HLG slowly build a lead that they held for the majority of the night.
However, Durst said that the height advantage didn’t help his team as much as he would have liked to have seen. While the Trojans had 25 defensive rebounds on the night, led by Brian Gilbert with six, the team also gave up 15 offensive boards to the Tigers, a number that Durst said he hopes doesn’t become a pattern.
“I think we could have been a little bit stronger,” Durst said. “Against a team where you have a size advantage, you would assume that wouldn’t be an issue. That’s certainly something we are going to have to be concerned about. When we play against teams in the future, they are going to see that and they are going to crash the boards harder.”
Coming into the close of the first half, the Trojans appeared to have six-point lead locked up. But a last second trey by the Tigers, one of the eight they made in 29 attempts, cut that deficit in half and left Iowa Wesleyan celebrating going into the locker room.
It was that shot, Durst said, that took the intensity out of the Trojans’ offensive attack when the second half commenced. The Trojans struggled to find the bottom of the bucket for the first five minutes, allowing the Tigers to Stay within three points.
“It was a momentum swing,” Durst said. “I hope we are not a slow-starting team, but in both halves in our last two games, we have been pretty slow out of the gates.”
A large portion of the night’s point total was due to the efforts of Gilbert, who led the team with 24 points.
The Trojans’ 73 points didn’t come without a price. As the game waned into its last few minutes, Kyle Pickett picked up a technical foul, finishing a run of rather physical fouls for both teams. Durst said that sort of physicality is to be expected, especially in the later portion of the season.
“Our big guys are not the most physical people themselves,” Durst said. “But we have to understand that is the way it is going to be. Against good teams, it’s going to be a little more physical of a game and a little more rough around the basket.”
The next game for the Trojans will be this Friday when the team travels to Seward, Neb., to take on York College as part of the Concordia University Cattle Classic. The next home game for the Trojans will not be until Dec. 14, when they take on Missouri Valley College. Tip-off for that game is set for 7:30 p.m.
