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By Dave Morrison
Sports Editor
Lindsey Wilson coach Paul Peck must have felt like he was taking a knife to a gunfight.
The No. 14 Blue Raiders traveled to Mountain State with five players not eligible.
The result was as expected: No. 6 Mountain State pulled away for a 72-59 win.
Peck said the five, including All-American Lloyd Lewis (19.9 ppg), point guard Andrew Crooms, who was fourth in the nation in assists, and 6-foot-10 post player Anthony Labka, became ineligible due to a complicated semester rule.
“It was my fault,” Peck said. “We have a winter term. We brought a couple kids in early (during the fall). You have to decide whether to attach them to the fall or winter term or have them stand alone. I decided to have them stand alone, trying to help them out ... It is complicated. If we had played this game yesterday, they could have played.”
MSU coach Bob Bolen said a win is a win, despite the fact his team didn’t play well.
“We can’t help what their academic problems are,” he said. “In fact, I didn’t tell my team that their guys weren’t playing until we went over matchups right before the game. If we went out there and didn’t play with intensity because some of their players didn’t play, then we have a long, long way to go.”
The Cougars led by eight at the half, thanks in part to poor shooting (10-32) by Lindsey Wilson.
But Mountain State (14-3) couldn’t pull away from the shorthanded Blue Raiders.
“That’s what we were talking about,” said Yusef Baker, who paced the MSU attack with 17 points. “What if we had lost this game? How is it going to look if they come in here and win without all their players? What would they be saying, ‘We whipped Mountain State without all our guys’? So we came out and stayed inspired in the second half.”
A lot of that had to do with Baker, who scored six straight points, all on slam dunks, over a two-minute period, to push a seven-point lead out to 40-27. Lindsey Wilson (12-3) never got to within single digits again.
“My teammates like it when I do that,” Baker said of the slam dunks. “They always seem to pick up the intensity after I get one.”
“We had a freshman in there, Stephan Jezbasic, who is going to be a good player, and he tried to overplay Baker and a good player made him pay,” Peck said. “We just got beat by a good team today. We’re going to learn from this. Fortunately, we’ll get to play them again.”
Paul Wright added 14 points for MSU and Jarvis Jackson added 11 off the bench. Tyrice Watkins had a good all-around game for the Cougars, with nine points, seven boards and five assists.
Lavar Gilbert had 17 for Lindsey Wilson and Jeremy Johnson added 11.
“We had a great crowd,” Bolen said of the 1,500 at Fan Appreciation Day. “I just wish we could have performed better in front of them. We had spots where we looked good and spots where we didn’t.”
Mountain State hosts Knoxville College at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Armory.
— E-mail: demorrison@
register-herald.com
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