MCC Men respond with Saturday win over Northeastern JC

The McCook Community College Men rebounded from a tough Region IX loss at home Friday to pick up an 83-76 win Saturday over Northeastern Junior College in the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center.

"Today was a complete polar opposite of yesterday," said MCC Coach Jacob Brandl. "You talk about a turnaround, we were a team on Friday night that was not being tough and not attacking the game of basketball and then today we were a team that was completely tough and completely attacked everything and made plays."

D'Andre Dennis (Charlotte, N.C.), led MCC with 20 points, hitting on six of nine 3-pointers.

"D'Andre Dennis was stepping up and hitting shots all over the place and they were open shots, and shots that he has got to make, and take, for us to be successful," Brandl said.

MCC trailed 37-32 at the half despite shooting 44.8 percent from the field. In the second half MCC shot the ball at a 56.3 percent clip in overcoming the five-point intermission deficit.

"We had open shots, but we had open shots Friday and had guys not wanting to shoot the basketball and today it was a completely different story. Guys' hands and feet were ready, there was no hesitation," Brand said.

Freshman Trey Summers (Greeley, Colo.) scored 12 points and was five of eight from the field and made both his 3-pointers. Julian Lual (Calgary, Alberta) scored 10 points. Martin Poznanovic (Uzice, Serbia) scored 10 points and was five of six from the field.

"It was everybody and a guy like Martin Ponanovic who is dealing with issues back home and our heart goes out to him and what he's going through playing with a heavy heart and came in and it didn't affect him." Brandl said. "He gave us all sorts of energy and was really good around the rim for us."

Ezichi Kalu (Lagos, Nigeria) led MCC with nine rebounds, DaMiene Boles Jr. (Dayton, Ohio) chipped in nine points, and MCC got seven points each from Damien Perry (Wareham, Mass.) and Beni Fungula (Stockholm, Sweden).

MCC made 10 of 16 shots from outside (62.5 percent) and made 11 of 17 free throws (64.7 percent).

"We have got to continue to build on this momentum because we are a very capable basketball team and we've shown flashes of that, we've been up and down, but we know what we can do," Brandl said. "If we can get the group to completely bought in on how we want to play and continue to get better each day we'll be okay

NJC falls to 7-12 and 3-4 in Region IX South. The Plainsmen shot 48.1 percent from the field, made 10 of 22 shots from the 3-point line (45.5 percent) and 14 of 17 free throws (73.7 percent). The Plainsmen outrebounded MCC 29-27. Both teams had nine offensive rebounds.

MCC goes to 6-18 and 2-6 in the region standings. MCC will be on the road for three straight games before returning home Feb. 18 and Feb. 19 to end the regular season at home.

MCC will be at Beatrice Tuesday for a game at Southeast Community College. On Friday MCC goes to Lamar for a Region IX match and then travel to North Platte Feb. 15 for a 7 p.m. game.

MCC will finish the season Feb. 18 hosting Trinidad State and then it will be sophomore night and the Dick Driml Chili Cookoff Feb. 19 against Otero Junior College.

For more photos from tonight's game, please visit the MCC Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MPCCMcCook