Despite being down by four on the scoreboard at halftime, the Three Rivers men's basketball team used defense to come out on top over Southern Arkansas University Tech 81-59 at the Libla Family Sports Complex on Saturday.
"When we make shots, it no surprise that we're pretty good," Raiders coach Brian Bess said. "In the second half we were just hitting shots. We can guard and play defense pretty well. At times when the ball isn't going in for us and I look at our percentages and sometimes I don't understand them because I've seen what our guys can do in practice."
In the first half, the Raiders were 11-for-27 from the field compared to shooting 21-for-28 in the second half as the offense was led by a 20-point night from Keith Kiner while Shannon Strickland and Lamar Wilkerson each had 11 points and Paul Greene contributed nine points and five rebounds in the win.
Late in the second half, Three Rivers was hit with the injury bug as Wilkerson went down while driving to the basket and didn't put any weight on his left leg as he was helped off the court.
"Lamar has a sprained ankle," Bess said. "I was worried about his knee when he went down, but the ankle isn't that much better. A sprained ankle is the diagnosis right now."
Bess said that there wasn't a definite timeline for Wilkerson's return.
Both teams kept it close for most of the first half, but SAU Tech got out to a 31-25 lead as Bess called a 30-second timeout with less than two minutes until halftime. The Raiders were able to end the first half with a 6-3 run as the Rockets had a 35-31 advantage at the break.
The Raiders came out of the gates running as it only took them 53 seconds to tie it up at 35 then Kiner put up a little floater to cap off an 8-0 run in the first two minutes of the second half.
Three Rivers eventually extended their lead to 46-39 as SAU Tech took a timeout with 15:56 remaining to figure out what was going on. During that stretch, the Raiders took advantage of clutch defense on their part while the Rockets couldn't buy a shot to go in.
"They shot 20% in the second half," Bess said. "We're very close to being very good defensively. In the second half we were pretty locked in on the defensive side of the ball."
With the Rockets' cold streak lasting about five minutes while the Raiders were making buckets, Three Rivers was able to go into their Christmas break with their second straight win on their home floor. Both teams will face off again on New Year's Day in Camden, Ark.
"They might not have looked like it (Saturday), but they have a talented team over there," Bess said. "Coach (Anthony) Beane said during halftime that we can either have a good two weeks off or a miserable two weeks. It's a deal where they played hard and when the ball is going in, we're very competitive."
