History was made Thursday night in Hutcherson Center as Wayland Baptist defeated Southwestern Christian (Okla.), 85-61, to secure at least a piece of the Pioneers' first-ever Sooner Athletic Conference regular-season championship.
"It's a great feeling anytime you win a championship," Wayland coach
Ty Harrelson said. "Wayland has been close so many times, so to finally get that first one is a great feeling."
Thursday's win – fueled by a season-high 28 points from
Josh Throns – improved ninth-ranked Wayland to 21-6 on the season and 16-3 in the conference, three games ahead of the Pioneers' nearest challenger, No. 23 John Brown, with three regular-season games to play.
"The guys wanted to win the championship and it showed in the way they played tonight. I'm really proud of all of them," Harrelson said. "Winning a regular-season championship says a lot about your whole season. You always have three goals: win the regular-season, win the conference tournament, and someday a national championship."
The Pioneers can claim the conference crown outright with a victory in any of their three remaining regular-season games, starting at 4 p.m. Saturday against No. 18 Oklahoma City (17-8, 12-7), which saw a six-game win streak snapped Thursday with a 92-70 setback at Oklahoma-Panhandle State.
Wayland then winds up the regular-season with road games at UT-Rio Grande Valley in an exhibition, Texas Wesleyan and Southwestern Assemblies of God, leading up to a home game Feb. 26 in the first round of the SAC Tournament.
The Pioneers won a couple of conference tournament titles in 2015 and '16, but in Wayland's 24-year history in the league they had never won a regular-season title…until Thursday.
The Pioneers trailed Southwestern Christian (10-15, 7-12) – a team Wayland beat a month on the road by just two points – for the first 10 minutes of the game, but when a bucket by Throns put the home team ahead 15-14, WBU never trailed again.
"We didn't play the first five minutes very well, but after that we were pretty good," Harrelson said.
Throns scored six points to kick off a game-changing 20-1 run that saw the Pioneers go from trailing by three to leading by 16, 31-15.
"We're deep. Our depth kind of took over that game, especially early," Harrelson said. "We were able to put in four back-up players and take the lead."
Wayland went up by 24 in the first half and b as many as 28 in the second, while the Eagles never got closer than 19.
"We kept attacking," Harrelson said.
Throns, who was honored before the game for joining the Pioneers' 1,000-point club during last Saturday's game in Muskogee, Okla., finished 9-of-13 from the field, including 6-of-9 3-pointers, and hit all four of his free throws. The senior's 28 points – including 22 in the first half – eclipsed his previous-best this season of 27, while missing his career-high of 33 his sophomore season.
"Josh was ready to play," Harrelson said.
Throns' parents, Paul and Christine, were able to witness the feat as they are visiting from Australia for Saturday's Senior Day recognition.
Like Throns,
Tre Fillmore also came off the bench to score his 12 points, while
Trevonta Robertson finished with 10 points and a game-high seven rebounds.
CJ Obinwa and
Dominic Cervantez added eight points each. It was a career-high for the sophomore Cervantez.
The Pioneers' recent hot shooting continued as they hit 49 percent from the field (28-of-57) and 48 percent from 3-point range (13-of-27), while connecting on 16-of-22 free throws (73 percent). The Eagles, whose only player in double figures was Darius Madkin with 27, managed just 28 percent overall (15-of-53) and from long range (7-of-25).
Wayland outrebounded Southwestern Christian, 43-31, and forced the Eagles into 21 turnovers.
"I thought our defense was really great," Harrelson said. "Rokas (Mazionis) played really great pick-and-roll defense, which is something we didn't do very well when we played at Southwestern Christian."
The coach said he hopes the conference championship means as much to the Pioneers' fans and former Wayland players as it does to him and his team.
"When I played here I was on two runner-up teams, and last year we missed out by a game, as did another team during Matt Garnett's tenure. There's been a lot of heartache and frustration. It's hard to be that close and have a taste of it so many times and not be able to get it done.
"A lot of great players have come through Wayland, guys who have been really important to our program over the years. We talk about them a lot as a group, and I feel like we owed it to them to get that goal of winning the conference championship accomplished.
"Hopefully we've made the former players and our fans who have been coming for all these years proud."
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