SHAWNEE- The Cavaliers (9-14, 5-11 SAC) played hard against the No. 19 Oklahoma City University Stars (19-7, 10-6 SAC) on Saturday evening, and the Cavs lost a heart-breaker, 67-65.
In the first half, the Cavs started off very well. St. Gregory's did a great job at controlling the tempo of play. SGU was playing fast paced, and OCU struggled to slow the game down. The Cavs jumped out to a 9-3 lead, only three minutes into the game, and then they extended that lead to 17-10, with 13 minutes to go in the half. The Stars cut the Cavs lead to only three points, making the game 26-23, but then SGU picked up the pace once more and grabbed their largest lead of the half at 36-25. Going into the break, St. Gregory's led 36-27.
The Cavs held the Stars to only shooting 39.1 percent from the field, and the Cavaliers shot 47.8 percent from the field. SGU took 16 shots from the free-throw line in the first half, and they knocked down 12 of them. As a team, the Cavs out-rebounded the Stars, 19-12, and they dished out 8 assists as a team. St. Gregory's scored 11 points off of turnovers and they scored 14 points in the paint.
Rodney Smith (SR/Chicago, Ill.) led the Cavs with 9 points and four assists in the first half. Zachary Lemusu (SR/San Diego, Calif.) scored 7 points in only 7 minutes of play in the first, due to foul trouble.
To start the second half, the Stars came out with lots of energy, and they kept chipping away at the Cavs' lead. The Stars took their first lead of the game, at 40-39, with 13:20 to go in the game. From that point on the game was back and forth all the way until the final buzzer. In the last 12 minutes of the game, there was 11 lead changes. With 18 seconds to go in the game, the Cavs tied the game up at 65, on a Jordan Rutherford (SR/Houston, Texas) put-back lay up. OCU called a timeout, and then Jonathan Reed drove the ball up the entire length up the court, and scored the game winning lay up just before the final buzzer went off.
Jordan Rutherford led the Cavs with 15 points, and Malik Barnett (JR/Midwest City, Okla.) scored 14 points. Rodney Smith scored 11 points and had 8 assists. Zachary Lemusu finished with 9 points and 7 rebounds. Michael Maras (JR/Tulsa, Okla.) scored 8, grabbed two rebounds, and had two steals.
OCU was led by Xavier Smith's 17 points and 8 rebounds. Lou Dunbar and Jonathan Reed each scored 12 points, and Walter Rickett scored 11 points.
The Cavaliers will be back in action at home on Thursday, Feb. 23 to face off against Mid-America Christian University at 8 PM.