The Harding Bison men’s basketball team fell to the University of Arkansas at Monticello Thursday, March 1, finishing off the season in the Great American Conference Tournament quarterfinals in Bartlesville, Okla.
“I think we played really well defensively,” head coach Jeff Morgan said. “We just had a hard time scoring in the last couple minutes of the game.”
The game finished with a score of 58-54 and ended the Bisons’ season 13-14.
“It’s a little disappointing we ended up losing our last six in a row,” junior forward Zach Roddenberry said. “But we are growing and I think next year is going to be something special.”
The Bisons led the game 52-47 with just under five and a half minutes left but only made one more layup as Arkansas-Monticello scored another nine points. A missed shot and a turnover by the Bisons kept them from tying the game up again.
L.A. Farmer of Arkansas-Monticello made two free-throws with eight seconds left in the game to win it.
“We ended up losing, but I thought we played a lot better together than we have the past few games,” Roddenberry said. “We are all kind of disappointed that we ended our season on a down note instead of a positive one.”
Although Roddenberry was eight of eight from the field and made all 10 of his free throws, scoring a total of 26 points during the tournament game, the Bisons made only one of the 13 3-pointer attempts in the tournament game.
“This team really grew,” Morgan said. “To start the year there were a lot of question marks, but we had some guys really step up. This may be one of the most unselfish groups of guys we’ve ever had.”
According to Morgan, team members isolated themselves from the outside world as they prepared for the game, texting loved ones to let them know that they would not have their phones for the next day and a half.
“We just felt like we needed to intensify our focus and get ready,” Morgan said. “With no cell phones around, it’s amazing how in tune you can be with each other.”
Roddenberry said “silence mode” helped the team focus on communication between each other, which is what the game relies on.
