NMMI Sports Press
The New Mexico Military Institute Bronco men's basketball team dropped their weekend home match to Western Texas College, 69-66.
NMMI held an 11-point lead at half, with a tough Bronco defense holding the Westerners to just 28 points, while scoring a plethora of points in the paint thanks to good ball movement and second chances on offensive rebounds.
But in the second, Western Texas came out on fire, sinking 10 of their first 11 shots. WTC went on a 20-0 run and scored as many points with 12 minutes left, as they had in the entire first half.
The Broncos battled back from a 15-point deficit, slowly chipping away with six inside points from freshman forward Donovan Long, and a pair of treys from sophomore guard Chandler Alexander.
Freshman point guard Aaron Williams Jr. was also big in the Bronco comeback bid with four points and three assists.
NMMI tied the score 62-62 with just over three minutes left to play, and even held a brief lead again, 64-63 after Long's last goal from the field.
But the Institute shooting again went cold – they managed just one more field goal, a two-pointer by frosh forward Yanis Ndjonga, over the final two-minute stretch.
"Play just carried over from the first half," said NMMI head coach Sean Schooley. "My assistant coach Troy Coleman pointed out that the quick shot we took at the end of the first half, instead of working to get the last shot, allowed WTC to get an uncontested lay-up. So instead it being a 13 or even 15 or 16-point lead going into the locker room, it was 11."
"In the second half, their point guard [Ahmed Robinson, who had 16 points and 5 assists in the second half] did exactly what he was supposed to do and controlled the show," continued Schooley.
Top scorer for the Broncos was Ndjonga with 12, along with 10 rebounds. Williams Jr. was close behind with 11 points and topped the team with five assists.
"If there's a bright spot in this loss, it's that we fought back," finished Schooley. "We could have laid down and died, after coming out flat and missing so many shots, but we didn't. We also had 15 assists. When we were up and when we made the come-back, we were passing the ball, moving around and getting good shots."
With the loss, NMMI drops to 8-14 overall and 1-7 in the Western Junior College Athletic Conference. Their next game will be at home against Frank Phillips College in another conference tilt on Thursday, Feb. 2 – tip-off slated for 6:30 pm MST in the Cahoon Armory gym.