The men’s basketball team defeated Millsaps College 85-39 this past Friday night. The lions maintained a steady lead throughout the game. Forwards Jordan Capps and Moses Greenwood scored the most points with 26 and 22 total points respectively.
Annie Goodman/The Lion's Roar

The men’s basketball team won their first game of the season 85-39 against Millsaps. This win snaps their season opener losing streak.

“First time I think we’ve won an opener in the last five or six years,” said Head Coach Jay Ladner. “It gets us one step closer to our goal. The fun’s about to start coming up Monday. We’ve got two tough games next week.”

Ladner is happy with the group he has this year and the progress they have made.

“Proud of our guys,” said Ladner. “Proud of their effort, their attitude. They’re outstanding, and they’re fun to work with. We’ve got a group of young men that represent the university very well. We’ve got high character kids, and it’s a group of young men that y’all can be proud of as our fans. Not always rosy and everything at practice, but they are fun to work with, and I think they made significant progress from last year.”

Senior forwards Jordan Capps and sophomore Moses Greenwood scored the most points throughout the game respectively with 26 and 22. The only other player to score in the double digits was sophomore guard Marlain Veal with 14.

“We had much better shot selection tonight,” said Ladner. “We shot 55 percent, and I really felt like in a game like that against that level of team we probably shoulda even done a little bit better. Jordan had an outstanding game from the field. 11-12 from the field. Moses was 7-10 from the field, and they did what they should do in there against those smaller players they were playing against.”

The Lions out-rebounded Millsaps by 24 rebounds.

“I thought that our team again played with great effort defensively,” said Ladner. “We did what we should do on the boards against a team of that size and skillset, won the rebound battle of 22-46 which, again, is what we should do.”

Despite their winning streak, Ladner believes his players need better offensive efforts.

“We’ve been very disappointed in our lack of activity on the boards the first two games even though we were fortunate enough to win it,” said Ladner. “There were a few times we were called and I addressed it at halftime. Moses got called one time going in there and getting into the offensive glass real hard and got called for a push or a over the back. Good call. I like the effort. That’s probably the first one we had all year. So, they were going to the glass too like they were supposed to.”

Ladner thinks the team needs to improve their shooting.

“Not shooting the ball extremely well,” said Ladner. “We’ve got a good shooting team. We really haven’t found our rhythm yet offensively. We were better tonight.”

Ladner believes Millsaps had put up a good fight until the end of the game.

“I thought our players are playing with much better effort on the defensive end,” said Ladner. “Credit to Millsaps. They were scrappy. I thought they did a good job. We felt like we could pressure them, and I think they did okay, till right at the end. They began to break and wear down a little bit, I think, with the basketball.”

The goal of the team is to be the second team from the university to make it to a post-season tournament.

“Our goal is to make post season play,” said Ladner. There’s only been one team in the history of Southeastern Louisiana that’s gone to post season play. That was in 2005-2006. They went to the NCAA Tournament. Our goal is to get into a post-season tournament.”

 

Jordan Capps dazzled the crowd with a dunks near the end of the game.
Annie Goodman/The Lion's Roar