Box Score OKLAHOMA CITY – Wayland Baptist broke open a tight game by scoring 11 unanswered points midway through the second half, and the No. 13 Pioneers went on to put away John Brown University in the quarterfinals of the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament here Thursday, 80-61.
"This doesn't surprise me because our guys do all of the right things leading up to game time," Wayland coach
Matt Garnett said.
Ta'Quan McDew scored 17 points to lead four Pioneers in double-figures, and
Bunja Yaboe turned in his fifth double-double of the season with 13 points and 12 rebounds for Wayland.
Royal Crouch finished with 15 points and
Robert Waters added 13.
The win sends Wayland (25-5) into the semifinals to face either second-seeded, 23
rd-ranked Oklahoma City (17-7) or 10
th-seeded Southwestern Christian (8-19), which knocked off No. 7 seed Oklahoma Baptist on Wednesday, 78-74 in overtime. Host OCU and Southwestern Christian played later Thursday.
Friday's winner advances to the championship game at 4 p.m. Saturday in Abe Lemons Arena. The tourney winner earns the SAC's automatic bid to the NAIA National Championships, while Wayland is all but assured at least an at-large invitation into the 32-team field in Kansas City.
Against John Brown (16-15), a team Wayland had beaten by 18 and 11 points in their previous meetings this season, the Pioneers fell behind early, but not for long. The teams traded the upper-hand for the game's first 12 minutes, with John Brown up 20-19 with 8:25 to go in the first half.
"We really wanted to play well today. We wanted to play well so badly that early on we didn't trust some of the things we needed to do offensively," Garnett said.
But eventually the Pioneers got it figured out.
Wayland went on a 14-4 run that included back-to-back 3-pointers by Waters and
Plamen Hristov, the latter making it 33-24.
The Pioneers never trailed again, although the Golden Eagles didn't go away easily.
John Brown quickly cut an 11-point lead to just four, 42-38, and the Pioneers were up by just six, 49-43, when they proceeded to begin finishing off the Golden Eagles.
Five different Pioneers scored points as part of a decisive 11-0 run that put Wayland up by 17, 60-43, with 8:45 left. A 3-pointer by McDew after he came up with a block was the biggest bucket.
The Pioneers went up by as many as 22 points before securing the win by 19.
Wayland shot 52 percent (34-of-66) from the field, including 8-of-16 from long range with Waters and McDew drilling three treys each, compared to JBU's 33 percent (22-of-66). The Eagles made 10 3-pointers in 24 tries. Wayland shot just five free throws, making four, while JBU went 7-of-10 from the stripe.
The team from Siloam Springs, Ark., was led in scoring by DJ Feitl with 20 points and Max Hopfgartner with 17.
Wayland held a decisive 46-33 rebounding edge.
NOTE: It was Wayland's first game without senior
Kendall Durant, who was dismissed from the team earlier in the week.
