The Baker University men’s basketball team pushed its winning streak to six games after defeating Ottawa University 83-77 Tuesday in Collins Center.
The win was the Wildcats’ second victory over the Braves in a 11-day span, and head coach Sean Dooley said that will give the team a good taste of how the Heart of America Athletic Conference regular season schedule will be like.
“I kind of liked (playing Ottawa twice) because it is what we are going to see here when conference play starts and this will be our only chance to do that,” Dooley said. “It’s nice to be able to do that, especially with it being so close to be able to play two games in a relatively short distance from each other. We didn’t change a whole lot. We had a little bit of a better understanding of what they wanted to do.”
In the Nov. 10 game against the Braves, the score was close throughout until the Wildcats pulled away in the final minutes for a 73-64 victory. On Tuesday, the Wildcats jumped out to 44-29 halftime lead, but BU was not able put the Braves away.
“We have to stay focused for both halves,” junior Chris Lockhart said.
BU led by as many as 18 points in the second half, but six points was as close as the Braves would get.
“We just need to find a body (to guard) and be a little bit more physical I think,” senior Ben Steinlage said. “We just got kind of lackadaisical and did some ball watching.”
The Wildcats had four players score in double figures with Steinlage leading the way with 14 points.
Baker shot 53 percent from the field and knocked down 25 of 32 attempts from the free-throw line.
“I think that was kind of our emphasis coming out of halftime was that we needed to pound the ball inside and if we do that and attack the rim, we’ll get to the line more,” Dooley said.
BU will look to extend its winning streak when it plays Friday and Saturday in the St. Gregory’s Thanksgiving Classic in Shawnee, Okla.
The ‘Cats will take on the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma at 6 p.m. Friday and bounce back to play St. Gregory’s University at 4 p.m. Saturday.
“I just told them they better be ready,” Dooley said. “We’re going to play some really, really good basketball teams down there and teams that have a good chance of making it to Kansas City for the national tournament.”
