November 13, 2009

RedStorm to play for Bevo Championship

Rio Grande --- The University of Rio Grande RedStorm men's basketball team used a strong second half effort to put away Ohio-Chillicothe in the final game of the first night of the 2009 Bevo Francis Tournament. Rio lit up the scoreboard with 54 second half points en route to a 96-74 victory over the Hilltoppers on Friday Night at the Newt Oliver Arena.

The RedStorm started a bit slowly and it took awhile but they finally dropped the hammer in the second half to move to 2-1 on the young season.

OUC (1-1) was able to stay close until late in the first half when Rio Grande went on a spurt and built the lead to 42-29 at the half. The Hilltopppers would crawl back to within eight points, but couldn't get any closer than that.

Rio Grande began to pull away early in the second half after a breakaway slam dunk by sophomore forward Bud Teer (Cleveland, OH) that made the score 60-47. The RedStorm would continue to build the advantage and delivered the knockout punch at the 9:31 mark when senior sharpshooter P.J. Rase (Wheelersburg, OH) buried a three-pointer to give Rio a 71-52 lead. Rase would lead all scorers in the game with 24 points. He led a balanced Rio attack and was the only RedStorm player to finish in double figures.

Teer added nine points and, a game-high, 14 rebounds while freshman forward Victor Bande (Madrid, Spain) and freshman point guard Tony Harris (Cincinnati, OH) also tossed in nine points each. Sophomore point guard Brad Cubbie (Dayton, OH) handed out five assists to lead all players in that category. 

Rio's second half onslaught can be attributed to 63.3 percent (19-of-30) shooting from the field, including going 5-of-11 (45.5 percent) from beyond the three-point arc. For the game, Rio shot 55.9 percent (33-of-59) from the field.

OUC had three players score in double figures led by Josh Kellough with 15 points. Anthony Gilbert and Shannon Kohn each added 10 points and Nick Milliken pulled down 11 rebounds to go along with eight points. 

Rio Grande manhandled the Hilltoppers on the glass, 54-29. 

Rio Grande head coach Ken French knows his team is very young and although at times, it's not always pretty, he believes his team improved as the game went along. "We're a young team, we're very, very young," he said. "We're so raw, we're bleeding right now."

"The best thing about this is we got 40 more minutes under our belts. You could tell as the game went on that we got better," French said. "Guys started talking and flying around making plays, they stopped thinking a little bit and defensively we still got a lot of work to do, but the pieces are there."

"The bottom line is we had to play tonight for tonight to get better, I thought we got better," French said. "We're getting there, we're a work in progress; we're nowhere near the team that we're going to become in January."

French added that he was proud of the way his team responded after a tough week of practice. "I like these guys," he said. "I killed them all week in practice and they responded tonight."

Rio will face a Taylor (2-0) in the Bevo title game at 5 p.m. on Saturday. Taylor out-lasted Union College (KY) in the first men's game of the day, 72-63. "We're going to find out about ourselves tomorrow, we play a very, very good Taylor team, they're well coached and we'll have our hands full," French said. "It'll be a great Bevo Championship and if we show to play it could be a great game." 

Stretch Internet will have the play-by-play coverage beginning at 4:50 p.m. 

Union and Ohio-Chillicothe will face off in the consolation game at 1 p.m.