WEST PLAINS — The Three Rivers College men's basketball team learned one of the oldest lessons in the game the hard way Wednesday night: never let a team hang around, especially a Region 16 rival.
The Raiders led the Missouri State-West Plains Grizzlies by 10 points early in the second half, but the Grizzlies slowly chipped away at that lead and ultimately rallied for a 68-65 win at the West Plains Civic Center.
"We lost a very winnable game," Three Rivers coach Brian Bess said. "I'm really disappointed in the outcome (and mainly in) our rebounding and our shot selection. Those are a couple of areas we've got to get better at."
West Plains (9-19, 1-9 Region 16) dominated the Raiders (13-14, 3-6) on the glass, holding a commanding 48-27 edge in rebounds, including a 17-point, 11-rebound performance from Carlos Paul III.
Three Rivers also struggled with its shooting, connecting on just 39% of its field goals (24-for-61). Outside of sophomores Caleb Young and Anthony Sellars, the Raiders made just 35% of their shots (12-for-34).
"They played a lot of zone probably the last 10 minutes of the game," Bess said. "We struggled against it and we normally don't struggle against zone. But sometimes I think we were our own worst enemy (and) we just took some poor shots."
The Raiders led 39-29 with 19:15 left in the game after Sellars opened the second half with a 3-pointer from the wing and added a basket, but West Plains scored six points in a row to get back within four points and kept it close the rest of the way.
The Grizzlies finally took the lead on Paul's layup with 2:57 to go, making it 60-59, then pushed the lead to three points (62-59) on Lucas Prolla's layup 38 second later.
I thought we had a chance to blow it wide open (on 3-4 occasions) and we didn't — we let them hang around and (they made) runs at us," Bess said. "And a lot of it had to do with our rebounding and our shot selection."
The Raiders did not give up, cutting the West Plains lead to 66-65 on Demetris "Meechie" White's layup with 41 seconds to go, but could get no closer.
Sellars and Young led Three Rivers with 16 points apiece, while Faheim Meran added nine points, eight assists and blocked two shots. Sellars also added six rebounds and White finished with three steals.
Despite still less than 100% with a sprained MCL, Sellars has averaged 20.5 points and 10.5 rebounds in the Raiders' last two games.
"He's been a really positive player," Bess said. "He can really shoot it. He was a little gimpy (Wednesday). He scored six points in a row and had to go out for 5-6 minutes — and when he came back, he wasn't the same. His knee was bothering him
The Raiders take on Moberly Saturday night in another Region 16 game. The Greyhounds (21-6, 8-2) handed Mineral Area its first Region 16 loss of the season Wednesday night, winning 71-67 at Moberly.
"(Moberly head coach) Pat Smith does a great job and he has for a lot of years," Bess said. "He's just a really good coach who gets his guys to play really, really hard. They press really hard, rebound really hard and they shoot a lot of 3s — and shoot them well."
Tipoff time Saturday at the Libla Center is set for 7 p.m.
ALUMNI WEEKEND
Saturday's men's and women's basketball games will be two of the centerpieces of TRC's Alumni Weekend, which is a de facto homecoming for the school. In addition to Saturday's basketball games, the school also will honor former Raiders men's basketball player Dusty Dinkins as the school's first Raider of the Year.
Saturday's basketball game also will feature a reunion of the TRC pep band, which will reunite for the first time in recent memory.
"Buddy and Cindy White are getting the Three Rivers pep band back together," Bess said. "They're really excited and they're going to have a return of a lot of their former band members. They're going to perform in the game and they're excited about that."
AROUND THE HORN
One of Moberly's top players is Xavier Sykes, the son of former Raider basketball player Antonio Sykes and former Lady Raider basketball Mary (Long) Sykes. … Three Rivers freshman Bryce Wallace will miss the rest of the season after having surgery on his pinky finger.
Mike Buhler - Daily American Republic