Box Score SHAWNEE, Okla. – On a Thursday full of upsets at the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament, maybe it was a good thing the Wayland Baptist Pioneers' game didn't finish until Friday.
Behind
Markus Monroe's 30 points and
Barry Johnson's 25 that paced five Wayland starters in double figures, the No. 22 Pioneers stopped a string of three straight quarterfinal games in which the higher-seeded team lost by outlasting John Brown at Oklahoma Baptist University's Noble Complex, 99-80.
"The guys prepared so well this week, and I think you saw the result of that," Wayland coach Matt Garnett said. "They played extremely well tonight."
The second-seeded Pioneers (22-9) next will play sixth-seeded University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (15-14), which knocked off No. 17 St. Gregory's (22-9), 78-74, at 8 p.m. Friday in the semifinals. Wayland and USAO split their regular-season meetings, with the Cavaliers winning 82-81 in overtime in Chickasha before the Pioneers prevailed in Plainview on Feb. 27, 89-85.
"USAO is playing with a great amount of urgency," Garnett said. "We watched some of their game tonight, and they looked as good as any team we've seen today.
"We'll put together a game plan that once again will start on the defensive end," the coach added. "We'll definitely have to be dialed in."
The winner of Friday's game will advance to Saturday's 7 p.m. championship to face either tournament host Oklahoma Baptist (18-15), the No. 8 seed which knocked off top-seeded, fifth-ranked Southwestern Assemblies of God University 79-78 in overtime, or fifth-seeded Mid-America Christian (17-10), which pulled off a mild upset of No. 4 seed Oklahoma City University, 87-85.
Wayland finished the regular-season in a four-way, second-place tie with MACU and OCU, as well as St. Greg's. The Pioneers split with OBU while sweeping MACU.
The tournament champ automatically advances to the NAIA National Championships in Kansas City, Mo., March 19-25. Teams without a title have to wait to see if they earn at-large bids.
On Thursday night/Friday morning against John Brown (21-11), a team that beat Wayland both times they played previously by a total of five points, the Pioneers and Golden Eagles took the floor about an hour later than their scheduled 9:45 p.m. tip. By the time Wayland walked off winners of its fourth straight game, it was 15 minutes after midnight.
Wayland scored 14 unanswered points midway through the first half to gain the upper hand…and never even thought about giving it back.
It was tied at 15 when the Pioneers went on their game-changing run, spurred by
Bunja Yaboe and
Royal Crouch who combined for the first nine points of the spurt. Johnson provided the final five points, capped by one of his five 3-pointers, all of which came in the first half which closed with Wayland leading, 51-35.
Before that, though, the Golden Eagles recovered long enough to trim Wayland's 14-point lead in half. Johnson, however, drained back-to-back 3s before he drilled another trey shortly after that, and a John Brown team that thought it had things back under control suddenly didn't again.
"That was really important to get the lead," Garnett said of Wayland's flurry of points.
The Golden Eagles never got closer than 13 in the second half as Wayland expanded its lead to as many as 24.
"The guys really trusted each other defensively," Garnett said. "I felt that was really important."
Behind Monroe's and Johnson's 55 points, Crouch added 12 and
Travis Payton and
Juhreece Thompson 10 each. Yaboe ended with six points and 10 rebounds.
"We had several guys step up and play well on both sides," Garnett said.
Wayland shot an impressive 56 percent (35-of-63) from the field, including 10-of-21 from long range. The Pioneers were equally impressive at the free-throw line, hitting 19-of-24 (79 percent).
John Brown got 26 points from Max Hopfgartner, 16 from Kofi Josephs, 12 from Gilbert Gyamfi and 11 from Kurtis Phillips. The Golden Eagles launched 34 3-pointers, making just nine (27 percent).
