The Bellevue College Men’s Basketball team came up short against Edmonds on Jan. 22, falling to a score of 87-74. A jump shot by Kevin Keowla gave Bellevue a three-point lead early on, but they would never hold the lead afterwards. They were outscored 36-28 in the first half, having been down as much as 11 points in that time frame.
The second half was a really strong showing from the Bulldogs and the game was far closer than the final score would suggest. Bellevue came out swinging, chipping at the lead for the first ten minutes until the lead was trimmed to just one point. A 21-point second half by Edmonds forward Curtis Walker capitalized off overall really impressive defense and made the difference in the end.
Trevon Richmond once again led the team with 30 points, including eight free throws. Jalen Womack followed with 19, while Gerald Hood and Marshall Clark both scored in the double digits. Trey Lawrence pulled in ten rebounds to lead the team.
For Edmonds, Walker’s second half gave him 28 points on the game. Sklyer Hammer and Amanuel Gebreziabher were the only other players to finish in double digits, scoring 14 and 12 points respectively. Walker supplemented his scoring game with 11 rebounds, giving him a double-double on the game.
Defense was the real difference in this game, as Edmonds exhibited a full-court defensive front for nearly the entire game. Coach Donald Brady game planned for it, noting that Edmonds has always been good at creating pressure. “Unfortunately we had a few turnovers against their pressure, but we also didn’t convert on some open opportunities,” he said. For the future, he noted, “Against a pressure team you’ve got to finish those types of opportunities or they are never forced to take off their press.”
Edmonds also went 15-18 from the free-throw line, capitalizing on each and every one of the fouls Bellevue committed. Tijohn Rodde committed five of Bellevue’s 16 fouls, but the most interesting foul came from a technical called on the coach in the second half. According to Brady, “I was told that I had complained about a certain type of call too many times. My response was that they had continued missing this call.” Despite any issues during the game, he took full responsibility, stating that, “I probably deserved a technical earlier in the game, but at that moment I don’t think it was warranted. But more importantly I shouldn’t have been wasting my time as the game was being called a certain way and that wasn’t going to change.”
Overall, the team as a whole displayed more confidence than they would have earlier in the season. The first half carried a lot of that confidence, until a quick ten-point run seemingly put the game out of reach early on. Brady noted that the runs were created by turnovers and offensive rebounds by Edmonds, stating, “We had a few completely empty possessions and then couldn’t finish our defensive possessions with a rebound.”
Bellevue fell to 0-4 in conference after the loss, and feels really close to turning around some of these games. They took 20 fewer shots than Edmonds, which seems to have been a trend in their games. If they can managed to string together constant successful possessions, this team could look entirely different than they have been.
Photo: Jamling Sherpa/The Watchdog
