Raiders see silver linings after loss

One day after the Three Rivers College men’s basketball team suffered an 87-68 loss to the Mineral Area Cardinals Wednesday night at the Libla Family Sports Complex, Three Rivers coach Brian Bess was able to see some silver linings.

“I thought us scoring 68 (points) was a pretty good night as far as attacking their defense,” Bess said. “I think they've been holding most teams under 50. We had a pretty good game plan. I thought we missed a lot of bunnies [open, uncontested shots] and we still scored 68.”

Bess has reason for seeing a few causes for optimism after the Raiders' loss to Mineral Area. The Cardinals lead NJCAA Division I in scoring defense at 56.1 points per game and have held eight opponents to 50 points or less this season. Mineral Area also leads NJCAA Division I in defensive field goal percentage at 35.9% and are ninth nationally in 3-point shooting percentage allowed at 28.3%.

One area where the Cardinals hurt Three Rivers was on the boards, where Mineral Area held a 45-31 edge. Charles Outlaw — the son of former NBA player Bo Outlaw — had seven offensive rebounds on the way to 14-point, 13-rebound double-double.

“Their second chance rebounds (hurt us),” Bess said. “I thought we did a really good job guarding them on their first shot (but) I thought they (got) tons of stickbacks. Outlaw (was) averaging like four points and six rebounds (coming in) and had 14 and 13 against us. We just didn't do a good job of rebounding with them.”

The Raiders (12-13, 3-5 Region 16) tied the game at 47 on Bryce Wallace’s basket with just over 15 minutes left in the contest, but Mineral Area answered with a 10-0 run to take control of the game — and take the lead for good.

“That was the turning point in the game,” Bess said.

Three Rivers did not go away, cutting its deficit to 65-58 on Robert Alexander’s basket with seven minutes and change to go, then draining a 3-pointer roughly three minutes later to get within 11 points at 75-64. However, the Cardinals (25-1, 8-0) closed the game on a 12-4 run to win going away.

Three Rivers started the game strong, taking an early 6-2 lead on Caleb Young's 3-pointer just 100 seconds into the game.

The Cardinals rallied and took their first lead of the contest at 13-12 on a Josh Meo 3-pointer with just under 12 1/2 minutes remaining in the first half, but TRC fought back, going back in front 21-20 on Kyle Edison's triple with 9:24 left in the half.

But it would be the last Raiders' lead of the night, as the Cardinals went on a 6-0 run, going up 26-21 on Marcus Watson Jr.'s layup with 7:57 left in the half.

MAC took a 38-32 lead on Watson's basket with 1:22 left before the intermission, but a free throw by Faheim Meran and two more by Edison made it 40-35 Cardinals at halftime.

As a team. TRC shot just under 40% from the field in the game (23-for-58) and pulled down 31 rebounds, led by six apiece from Edison and Young.

Young paced the Raiders with 17 points, while Demetris “Meechie” White had 14, Edison added 11 and Meran finished with 10.

Meo paced the Cardinals with 22 points, while Tyler Smith added 14 and Watson had 13, plus eight assists and seven steals.

Three Rivers takes the court again Saturday at Hillsboro against Jefferson. Tipoff is set for 3 p.m.

With five games left before the Region 16 tournament and four region games in a row to close of the regular season, what do the Raiders need to do to succeed?

“We've just got to keep getting better,” Bess said. “We have to keep getting better every day and be playing our best basketball in March.”