The Park University men's basketball program hosted (RV) Graceland on Thursday night in Breckon Sports Center, falling to the Yellowjackets 88-66.
The Pirates drop below .500 on the season at 6-7 and still maintain a respectable Heart of America Athletic Conference record at 4-2. Graceland is perfect in the Heart at 6-0 and bump up to 11-2 on the year.
Park stayed with Graceland in the early going, but a three-pointer by the Yellowjackets started the game 3-0.
Bayley Crawford,
Otavio Armani, and
Tristan McRoberts pulled Park within a point at 8-7, including a three-pointer from McRoberts. Graceland was ready to fire from beyond the arc though with eight first half three-pointers. Graceland's Carson Busch had 18 points in the first half with six made threes. He shoots just shy of 50-percent from three on the season.
With just over five minutes of play, Graceland only missed two shots, six-of-eight, on their way to an 18-9 advantage over Park. Park got it into gear on a layup and then three-pointer by Armani and then an and-one by McRoberts put Park in a good position at 20-17 with 12:57 to go. Three unanswered three-pointers in the next couple of minutes by Graceland's Busch led to a 29-17 lead for the Yellowjackets. An 8-0 run by Park in response got them back within striking distance at 34-29. As the half came to a close though the Yellowjackets regained a double-digit lead with a 10-3 run, 44-32.
The three-point shooting slowed down in the second half, but the Yellowjackets still shot five-of-11 from beyond the arc. Two of those threes came in the first couple minutes of the second half, giving Graceland a 50-36 lead. McRoberts and another three-pointer by Armani brought the Pirates within nine points, 50-41 and Armani would again cut down the deficit with a triple at the 15:43 mark, 52-44. Graceland was able to keep three to five possessions ahead of the Pirates, coming up with scoring to deflect the Pirate attacks each time.
Tyler Burrows made some threes down the stretch for Park, including an and-one three-pointer to pull Park within 10 on the four-point play, 69-59. After that Park was 0-4 from the field with three turnovers, while Graceland extended their lead to 78-59. Graceland was able to run the time down without any further complications for the 88-66 win.
Graceland was 50-percent from the field and were 13-of-30 from deep, while Park was 41-percent and seven-of-25 of the same.
Graceland got to the line four more times than Park but had the same number of makes to show for it at 11-of-17 to Park's 11-of-13.
Park had three more turnovers in the game, but overall both sides played a fairly clean game with 10 turnovers for Park and seven for the Yellowjackets. Still, Graceland had double the points off of thurnovers at 15 to seven.
Park had double the fastbreak points at eight compared to Graceland's four. And bench scoring favored the Yellowjackets 11 to four for Park.
There were no lead changes after Graceland's first bucket to open the game.
Armani and Burrows were Park's leading scorers and the mos significant threats from distance. Armani scored 22 points with a four-of-eight night from deep, while Burrows got to 20 points with a two-of-seven shooting night from beyond the arc.
Armani did work inside as well with a double-double on 10 rebounds.
McRoberts got to 10 points as well and co-led with Burrows with four assists.
Park takes a break until after the New Year and will pick up on January 3 in Lawrence, Kan. against Haskell University.
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