I was apprehensive because it just seemed like the Knox offense had trouble getting points, so I wondered if in the second half if Augie would go on a 15-0 run at some point, and make the first half effort seem wasted. It never came.
Doug Lillibridge played huge minutes and did his usual job defending, and usual job hitting defensive boards but also had some nice post feeds. Tanner Carlson got the offense into sets, and patiently took time off the shot clock to shorten the game.
9 minutes to go- Knox down 43-36.
8 minutes to go- Knox down 43-40
3 minutes to go- Knox down 53-47
33 seconds to go- Knox down 55-52
8 seconds to go- Knox down 3, misses a three, fouls
8 seconds to go- Augie misses ft, Knox rebound
6.6 seconds to go- Knox makes first ft to go down 55-53
6.6 seconds to go- Joe Kozak get offensive rebound, tries to go up for shot, appears to get slapped across his arms, the ball doesn't make it more than five feet in the air.
Final- Augie 55-53.
The interesting thing was that as Knox players left the floor, there was no look of a moral victory. Despite their struggles, I think the Knox players had honestly expected to win. They showed great toughness, and played hard. Anyone there had to be impressed.
Can't wait to see how the second half of the season turns out.
The Knox College men’s basketball team did everything their coach asked them to do in their 55-53 loss to No. 3 ranked Augustana College on Monday and after the final buzzer sounded the Prairie Fire’s loss to the Vikings boiled down to two things.
“Our guys did everything we asked them to do tonight,” Knox coach Rob Purlee said. “They hit one more shot then we did tonight and they had one more defensive stop then we did.”
The Vikings (9-1) were without leading scorer Bryant Voiles, a senior from Byron who is averaging a team-leading 19.4 points and 7.1 rebounds per game, due to shin splints. However, the Vikings Troy Rorer, a senior from Bettendorf, Iowa who is averaging 10.2 points per game, proved to be enough. Rorer had a game-high 21 points with eight of his points coming from the charity stripe.
“I thought Rorer was carrying them tonight,” Purlee said.
Augustana started the game with a 10-2 run —four points coming from Rorer free throws. The Prairie Fire (2-6) didn’t back down from the Vikings throughout the game and fed the ball inside to Lukas Shaw on nine occasions in the first half. At halftime, Shaw, who finished with 12 points, had 10 points on 5-for-9 shooting in the first 20 minutes.
The Prairie Fire found themselves behind 33-23.
With 13:31 to play, Purlee was called for a technical foul and his team turned up the fire on the Vikings.
Knox senior point guard Tanner Carlson, who led the Prairie Fire with 17 points, hit a jumper with 8:34 left and Knox found itself within 43-40.
With 6.6 seconds left, Knox’s David Jones made the first of two free throws. Joe Kozak, who finished with 13 points, rebounded the miss for the Prairie Fire, but his putback attempt came up empty and the Vikings walked off Tim Heimann Court with the victory.
“Give Knox credit. Coach Purlee had the best game plan of anyone we have faced this year,” Vikings coach Grey Giovanine said. “He really has those guys competing. Hats off to a Knox team that I think is going to have a great run. We were fortunate to get a win.
“They pack things defensively in and took away our first options. They were going to make us make perimeter jump shots and we struggled to do that without our best player.”
The Prairie Fire have seven days off before preparing for the second half of their season and Purlee knows what his team needs to do after their hard fought contest against the Vikings.
“We can’t let the game be poisonous,” Purlee said. “I told the guys after the game that we can’t let people tell you that you hung with Augustana. We wanted to beat Augustana. We have got to stay hungry.”
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