MSU loses bid for national title

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March 26, 2008

NAIA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament

By Dave Morrison The Register-Herald Wed Mar 26, 2008, 12:52 AM EDT

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Stars were aligned right for Oklahoma City Tuesday night at historic Municipal Auditorium during the NAIA national championship game. For Mountain State, a second national title just wasn’t in the stars.

One night after eliminating previously undefeated and No. 1 seed Georgetown (Ky.) 78-65, the Cougars couldn’t deliver a final salvo with a 75-72 loss to defending national champion Oklahoma City.

Mountain State coach Bob Bolen said his team would have to play a perfect game to have a chance against Oklahoma City. And the Cougars didn’t get it.

“But our players never gave up,” Bolen said. “I thought we had a hard time getting into the flow of the game early. But after we got into the flow and got into our running game, we played better.”

“I don’t think we had to play a perfect game,” said James Spencer, who had 14 points for MSU and was named NAIA first-team All-America before the game. “We just needed to execute and we didn’t do it. I missed a lot of shots and we just didn’t play well enough early. They wanted it more than we did. They were a more experienced team.”

The Stars got 22 points and six boards from Willie Irick and 19 points and four assists from tournament MVP Kameron Gray in repeating as NAIA national champions.

Rutgers transfer Ollie Bailey, the NAIA national player of the year, added 15 points and 16 rebounds, his 13th double-double of the season.

“That’s what our goal is always going to be at Oklahoma City, to win championships,” OCU and NAIA national coach of the year Ray Harper said.

“Oklahoma City is a great team,” Bolen said. “You can’t take anything away from them. They played great. I thought five games in seven days out here took its toll on both teams.”

Mountain State had a hard time matching up with Oklahoma City’s size and couldn’t find the range from three-point land, something that had carried the Cougars in the first four games of the tournament.

The Cougars finished with nine threes, but many of those came as they were trying to recover from a double-digit deficit late.

MSU made it interesting, outscoring Oklahoma City 22-10 in the final 4:30.

A late flurry of threes, the final from the corner by Adron Marshall made it 75-70. Spencer then stole the inbounds pass and laid it in to make it 75-72 with 1.4 seconds left. However, after having one inbounds pass batted away, Oklahoma City was able to inbound the ball to end the game.

“I’m proud of our kids because they never quit,” Bolen said. “Even to the final buzzer, they were trying. They kept competing and we got back in the game. It just wasn’t quite enough.”

Mountain State made a bid to get back in the game midway through the second half when Tyrice Watkins and Jarvis Jackson made back-to-back threes to cut a 15-point lead to single digits.

After Irick put the Stars back up by 11, Jackson converted a three-point play to make the score 49-41.

But a three by Gray started a 13-3 run that put the Stars up by 18.

MSU, buoyed by the outside shooting of Jackson, made a run that cut the Stars’ onetime 18-point lead to nine, 66-57, with 2:01 remaining.

That’s when the Cougars made their final run.

Jason McGriff had a double-double for Mountain State with 22 points and 11 rebounds.

Jackson had 15 for the Cougars, finishing off a tournament run that saw senior score in double figures in every game after averaging 8.2 during the regular season.

Spencer struggled, shooting 6-of-14, including 1-for-5 from the three-point line. It was his first sub 20-point game of the tournament.

“We couldn’t get stops when we needed to and I missed a lot of shots,” Spencer said. “It’s disappointing.”

Marshall concluded his MSU career with an 11-point game.

Oklahoma City owns the most championship rings of any NAIA school, with five. The Stars are the first team since Life in 1999-2000 to win back-to-back NAIA titles. Concordia had tried to do it previously, but Mountain State derailed that bid in 2004.

The Stars, a team made up of several Division I castoffs and transfers, including Bailey, who was on the freshman All-Big East team at Rutgers, are the first team since Kansas State to appear in three straight NAIA title games. Oklahoma City is 14-1 during that stretch.

Mountain State was undone in the first half by the very thing that got the Cougars to the championship game in the first place. The Cougars hit just 2-of-9 threes and found itself down seven, 29-22, at the break.

Oklahoma City didn’t score in the opening four minutes, going 0-8, but Mountain State struggled nearly as bad and led just 3-0.

The Stars finally pulled ahead 10-7 on a three by Richard Jackson at the 12:47 mark.

It went back-and-forth over the next nine minutes, with four lead changes and a tie at 14.

Oklahoma City made the first big run of the game when Gray and Jackson hit back-to-back threes to make the score 29-21 with 0:50.8 remaining in the half.

Marshall converted 1-of-2 free throws to make it 29-22 at the break, the Cougars’ lowest first-half total of the season.

“I thought both teams were playing great defense in the first half, and that led to the low scoring in the first half,” Bolen said.

Mountain State is now 1-2 all-time in NAIA national championship games.

— E-mail: demorrison@register-herald.com

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OKLAHOMA CITY 75, MOUNTAIN STATE 72

OKLAHOMA CITY (31-7)

Willie Irick 15 7-9 22, Na’Vonta Kentle 0-1 0-0 0, Ollie Bailey 4-12 7-8 15, Kameron Gray 6-12 6-8 20, Ronald Taylor 2-2 4-6 8, Jason Arbet 1-1 0-0 2, John Roby 0-0 0-0 0, Richard Jackson 3-7 0-0 8. Totals 22-50 26-33 75.

MOUNTAIN STATE (34-3)

James Spencer 6-14 1-1 14, Jarvis Jackson 5-11 2-3 15, Tyrice Watkins 2-5 0-0 5, Adron Marshall 3-10 4-6 11, Jason McGriff 8-14 4-6 22, Ralph Legg 1-3 0-1 2, Denzel Lyles 0 0-0 0, Rod Green 0-0 0-2 0, Ermin Tarcin 1-5 0-0 2. Totals 26-62 11-19 72.

Halftime—OC 29-22. 3-Point Goals—OC 5-15 (Irick 1-7, Gray 2-5, Jackson 2-3), MSU 9-26 (Spencer 1-5, Jackson 3-7, Watkins 1-2, Marshall 1-5, McGriff 2-3, Legg 0-1, Tarcin 1-3). Fouled Out— MSU (Jackson). Rebounds—OC 38 (Bailey 16), MSU 31 (McGriff 11). Assists— OC 10 (Gray, Taylor 4), MSU 12 (Marshall 4). Total Fouls—OC 16, MSU 21. A—3,876.

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Celebration planned to honor team

Mountain State University will host a celebration to congratulate its Cougar basketball team at 5 p.m. Thursday at the John. W. Eye Conference Center on South Kanawha Street, Beckley.

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