Central men’s basketball title repeat bid foiled on the road
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA-For the Central College men’s basketball team, eyes are already fixed on the road ahead.
The Dutch (16-8 overall, 10-5 American Rivers) got center Joshua Van Gorp’s (senior, Pella) fourth 30-point night of the season but saw their dreams of a conference title repeat end Wednesday after failing to dislodge Nebraska Wesleyan University from its share of the top spot in an 84-69 road defeat Wednesday. Still, Central is assured of a berth in next week’s six-team conference tourney and a potential NCAA Division III tournament berth.
Much remains in the air regarding conference tournament seeding heading into Saturday’s regular-season finale with Luther College. It’s a women’s-men’s home doubleheader with the men’s game starting at 4 p.m. at P.H. Kuyper Gymnasium. The Senior Day contest can be viewed at athletics.central.edu with live stats available as well. The game is also being broadcast on KRLS-FM (92.1) with Tyler Crabb calling the action. Luther is 7-17 overall and 2-13 in the conference after an 86-54 home-court loss to Loras College Wednesday. Central downed the Norse at Decorah Jan. 17, 80-68.
“We’ve got to get some momentum going into the tournament,” coach Joe Steinkamp said.
Pairings for the conference tourney will be announced after Saturday’s games. The bottom four seeds play first-round games Tuesday with the winners advancing to face the top two seeds in next Thursday’s semifinals.
Ranked No. 2 in the region, Nebraska Wesleyan (21-3 overall, 12-3 conference) is tied for first with Coe College which scored a 56-50 road win over the University of Dubuque 56-50. That leaves Dubuque and Central tied for fourth at 10-5, a game behind Loras College. Dubuque and Loras clash Saturday. Central could place as high as a tie for third place or as low as fifth.
Van Gorp’s 30 points push him into fourth place on Central’s season scoring list with 567 points. John Carle set the season mark of 666 in 1959-60. Van Gorp is also up to ninth on the career scoring charts with 1,316 points.
“Josh had another phenomenal game,” Steinkamp said.
But sizzling shooting lifted Nebraska Wesleyan to a first-half lead it never relinquished Wednesday. The Prairie Wolves were up 27-15 at the 10-minute mark and shot 60.7% in taking a 42-32 halftime lead.
Central also shot well, hitting 54.5% in the half, and was narrowly outshot for the game, 52.9% to 51.0%. The rebounds were even at 28-28. But Nebraska Wesleyan outshot the Dutch from 3-point range, 55.0% to 28.6% and at the free throw line 82.6% to 52.4%. Central hit only six of 21 3-point tries and 11 of 21 free throw attempts.
“We took away a lot of the stuff (from Nebraska Wesleyan) that we wanted to,” coach Joe Steinkamp said. “They’re not normally a great 3-point-shooting team and then they shoot over 50% from three. They had some guys with some really good shooting performances.
“That was kind of the difference in the game. And both teams got to the free throw line but they made their free throws and we didn’t.”
Guard Kaleb Brand (senior, Mount Vernon) had 18 points while forward Kole Tupa (senior, Center Point, Center Point-Urbana HS) secured nine rebounds and forward Grant Johnson (5th-year, Waukee, Van Meter HS) passed out 11 assists.
“Kaleb had a really good all-around game,” Steinkamp said. “I thought he was really good defensively, had some great finishes in transition and shot the three-ball well. But we were 6-of-21 from three against a zone team. We’ve got to shoot better than that.”
But the Dutch are now aiming for a tournament run.
“We’ve proven we can string a lot of wins together and we’ve proven we can beat the best teams,” Steinkamp said. “We’re just going to have to take it day by day from here.”
