Lincoln men fall to second-half surge by Central Oklahoma

Chuck Wilson drives around a pick set by Lincoln teammate Josh Wallace during Saturday’s game against Central Oklahoma at Jason Gym. (Ken Barnes/News Tribune)
Chuck Wilson drives around a pick set by Lincoln teammate Josh Wallace during Saturday’s game against Central Oklahoma at Jason Gym. (Ken Barnes/News Tribune)

The Lincoln men’s basketball team played Saturday for the first time since New Year’s Day, falling to the No. 22 Central Oklahoma Bronchos 82-55 at Jason Gym.

It had been two weeks since the Blue Tigers had lost to Emporia State 76-69 due to a COVID-19 breakout within the program that cancelled their next two games, followed by Newman being unable to travel to Jefferson City due to COVID-19 concerns Thursday.

If there was a sign of rust for Lincoln, it did not show early. The Blue Tigers (1-11 overall, 0-7 MIAA) started out the game making their first four shots, jumping out to an 11-6 lead against the nationally ranked Bronchos (15-2, 10-1 MIAA) at the 16:07 mark.

“I thought we came out with pretty good effort,” Lincoln coach Ed Wilson said. “I thought the guys came out and executed on offense really well, and we executed defensively pretty well too. We made a few mistakes late in the first half and let them go on a run, but I was plenty decent with the effort to start.”

The rest of the first half was a back-and-forth battle with neither team having a lead larger than seven points. The Blue Tigers were in front 30-23 with 7:43 remaining in the half, but allowed the Bronchos to go on a 16-3 run going into the break and take their own seven-point lead.

The Blue Tigers struggled in the second half. It was apparent the team had not seen game action in two weeks, and a physical first half took a toll on the players. Lincoln allowed Central Oklahoma to shoot 16-of-27 from the floor following halftime, due in large part to the Bronchos getting much easier looks than they did in the first half.

“I thought in the second half, our COVID pause really took its toll on our players,” Wilson said. “A lot of our guys were showing signs of being tired. Obviously, we were off last week and we just got a couple of guys that just got back with us on Friday. You could kind of tell in the effort in the second half that guys were a lot more winded than they had been in any other point of the regular season.”

Tired bodies led to Lincoln giving up easy buckets both in the paint and in transition. The Bronchos scored 44 of their 82 points inside the paint and were able to get 20 points off of the 16 Blue Tiger turnovers.

Despite all the points in the paint, Lincoln did a good job containing Central Oklahoma’s leading scorer Isaiah Wade. Wade came into the game averaging a hair under 20 points per game but was limited to 2-of-10 shooting from the field and only scored nine points. Frustrations were getting to Wade as he picked up a technical early in the second half after making his first field goal of the contest.

Lincoln was led on offense by 13 points from Yaniel Vidal, who made his first start of the season. Ni’Sean Richardson also added 12 points and Mark Boland scored 10 points off the Lincoln bench as the only other Blue Tigers in double figures.

“(Vidal) is a guy that you can always count on,” Wilson said. “It’s just good to have him back healthy. At the start of the season he had some health issues, but now he is getting back close to 100 percent. You can always depend on him, he is a warrior.”

The Blue Tigers may be getting some help back soon as Sevon Witt is back on the roster after transferring to the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley following last season and then transferring back to Lincoln. 

It is unclear if he will be eligible for the Blue Tigers this season.

“He’s back, but we will see if we can get him eligible,” Wilson said. “We reached out to the NCAA to see if we can see his fate on whether or not he is going to be able to play for us this year.”

Lincoln is set to hit the road for a five-game road trip starting Thursday when it travels to Rogers State (10-6, 4-6 MIAA) at 7:30 p.m.

“We just have to be road warriors,” Wilson said. “We are just trying to win on the road. The MIAA is hard and we just have to get back and healthy.”