MACOMB, Ill. - David Nurse led all scorers with 15 points, to pace Western Illinois to a 67-47 exhibition victory over Ashford.
David Dubois' jumper with 15:40 left in the first half put the Leathernecks ahead 9-7 and helped fuel a 13-1 run that gave Western a 23-8 lead with under 10 minutes left in the half. Ashford was able to cut the lead to 11 points, but was held without a field goal over the final four minutes of the half, and the Leathernecks went into the locker room with a 40-19 advantage.
Western utilized hot shooting in the first half to help build its lead. The Leathernecks shot 66.7% (14-21) from the floor, which included 50% (4-8) from beyond the arc. Nurse was the leading scorer at the break with 11 points on 3-of-4 shooting from 3-point range. The Saints managed to shoot just 29.4% (5-17) and were 1-of-8 on three's.
“I liked what I saw in the first half,” said Western Illinois head coach Derek Thomas. “We were able to keep their possessions down and we were able to move the ball around until we found an open shot. We also took advantages of a few mismatches on the block.”
Ashford came out of the break and was able to cut Western's lead to 14 with 13:38 left to play, and came as close as 13 with 6:50 remaining.
The Leathernecks retaliated with back-to-back field goals by Nikola Bodic, and a James Washington three-point play to push their lead back to 20. With 4:59 to play, James Granstra came up with a steal, which Nurse converted into a transition layup to cap a 9-0 run for the Leathernecks. That run gave Western its biggest lead of the game at 22 points.
“I think the slip in defense the second half was partly due to a lack of focus,” said Thomas. We took some quick shots and that's a habit we don't want to get into. Tonight we just got a little too satisfied with our lead and got away from our game plan for a while.”
Nurse, who also led the way for Western on glass with six rebounds, paced three Leathernecks in double figures. David DuBois had 12 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the floor and a perfect 4-of-4 from the line. Bodic chipped in 10 points. Daniel Joiner led the way for Ashford with eight points.
Postgame quotes from Western Illinois head coach Derek Thomas:
I saw progress in some ways. We want to keep the tempo down and we want to keep our opponent under 60 points and 60 possessions. In the second half I saw our shooting go down a little bit and our defense slip a little. A lot of that is because we played a quicker team tonight than in the first game.
This was another teaching night. We're working through some of the transition things between high school or junior college and Division I basketball. We need to work on finding the mismatches and finding the open guys.
On 67% shooting in the first half:
Mid-range shooting is something that we really went out and worked on when we were recruiting. It helps your three-point game and it helps your post game. It is one of our strong points this year.
On David Nurse, leading scorer and rebounder:
Nurse is going to have to make a slight adjustment now that Ceola (Clark) is out. One positive about losing Ceola in the first exhibition is that we still have time too find our rotation. I think we had a good rotation tonight. David James and Josh Rivers, along with Nurse, are going to have to adjust their games a little bit and expect to handle the ball a little bit more.
On Nikola Bodic:
Bodic is an aggressive offensive guy. He's got a lot of energy out there. He is a big body on the perimeter, but if you put another big body on him, he is quick enough to make you pay.
On getting out-scored in the second half:
I think the slip in defense the second half was partly due to a lack of focus. We took some quick shots and that's a habit we don't want to get into. We had 3-4 offensive rebounds at the end of the game, and that's what we want to do. We want to make them play defense for a minute at a time and wear them down. Tonight we just got too satisfied with our lead and got away from our game plan. We need to not get too happy and start playing individual basketball because that is when you get hurt as a team.
