Gallery: (2-28-2023) Pioneers vs. Langston
OKLAHOMA CITY – With a ticket to the NAIA National Championships already in hand, Wayland Baptist came up short in Tuesday night's championship game of the Oklahoma Ford Dealers Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament as the Pioneers fell to fifth-ranked Langston, 80-68.
At the game played at Gaulke Activity Center on the Mid-America Christian University campus, the SAC regular-season runner-up Pioneers (23-8) broke out front 11-3, but league champion, top-seeded Langston – which improved to 29-2 after winning just one game last season – quickly shot its way back in it. The lead changed hands 11 times before the Lions took the upper hand for good some five minutes into the second half during a 14-1 run.
That spurt put Langston up 54-42. Wayland cut its deficit to six, 60-54, on a jumper by
Tedrick Wolfe with 9½ minutes left. But that's as close as the Pioneers got as the Lions scored the next eight points to push the margin to 14, 68-54, with 5:42 showing.
The closest WBU came after that was eight.
Wayland's all-tournament picks
D'Michael Bellfield and
RJ Mason led the Pioneers in scoring with 19 and 15 points, with Bellfield, who was 7-of-9 from the field, also getting 11 rebounds for his second straight and fifth double-double of the season.
Parrish Hewitt added 11 points, Wolfe 10 and
Reece Spencer nine.
The Lions were paced by Toru Dean with 17 points and tourney MVP AJ Rainey with 14. D'Monte Brown posted a 13-12 double-double while Tristan Harper scored a dozen.
Langston turned the ball over just six times while Wayland suffered 10 turnovers.
It was the first SAC tourney title for the Lions, who joined the SAC for the 2018-19 season. It was only the second loss in the last 15 games for Wayland, which fell for the second straight year in the title game, having lost last year to Southwestern Assemblies of God by two points.
Tuesday's contest was a rubber game after the Pioneers and Lions split their regular-season games. Langston won on Dec. 12 in Oklahoma, 86-74, before Wayland upset the then No. 3 Lions on Feb. 4 in Plainview, 90-80.
Unlike last year when the Pioneers needed to win the tourney title to secure an automatic bid to nationals, Wayland – under second-year coach
Clint Galyean – locked up its first berth at nationals since 2020 with Monday's semifinal win over Oklahoma City University. That's because Langston earned the automatic bid that goes to the regular-season champion, and after the Lions also made the tourney championship, the other tourney finalist – Wayland – was guaranteed a spot.
The final pitted Galyean against his former boss at Central Baptist (Ark.), Chris Wright. Wright is in his first season with the Lions after four at Talladega College (Fla.), including a national runner-up showing a year ago.
The bracket for nationals will be announced at 7 p.m. Thursday on the NAIA's YouTube channel. The first two national tourney games for the 64-team field will be played at 16 sites across the country March 7 and 8 before 32 teams descend on Kansas City, Mo., March 13-18.
