Story and photos by Chet Piotrowski Jr.
Lake Land men’s basketball coach Julian Larry was not at all pleased with how his team played after a 97-69 non-conference loss to Vincennes on Saturday.
“We played like ‘dog poop emoji’,” he said.
The Lakers fall to 14-13 on the season with three conference games remaining.
The Lakers got on the scoreboard first with a layup by Yassin Hussein, but Vincennes’ went on a 9-3 run afterwards.
Lake Land lost to Vincennes on December 17th by five points, 80-75.
“They (Vincennes) played hard. We match them size wise down there (at the post),” Larry said. “Bonsi (Michael Bonso) is a little bit bigger. They just played harder than us tonight.”
The only thing that did go right was in the first half when Lake Land was aggressive to the basket drawing fouls. The Lakers had 15 first half free throws shooting almost 80 percent.
Bonso led all scorers with 21 points.
Lakers guard Dailliss Cox pulled the squad to within two, but Vincennes went on a 24-7 run, going into the halftime break with a 49-30 lead. Cox finished with 16 points, just behind Johnny Close’s 17.
Lake Land was without sophomore point guard Arnardo Camacho due to injury, who’s leading the nation in assists. Larry said the team just didn’t execute regardless of who was on the court.
“Doesn’t matter who’s on the court,” he said. “It’s a matter of excuting and competing. We didn’t do that tonight.”
Demonstrably upset, Larry was disappointed with his team’s lack of scoring.
“We couldn’t hit a shot. If you can’t hit a shot you can’t win a game,” he said. “I think we were 40 percent from the field for the night. If you’re 40 percent from the field, you’re not going to win many games. Gotta be able to score the basketball, and that was our big issues tonight.”
Larry said the sole item on the team’s itinerary to prepare for the upcoming stretch of games is to get better.
“Get better everyday,” he said. That’s literally what we’re focusing on every day.”
| 1 | 2 | F | |
| Vincennes | 49 | 48 | 97 |
| Lake Land | 30 | 39 | 69 |
VINCENNES – Cook 1 1-2 4, T. Johnson 5 0-0 13, Gaither 1 0-0 3, King 6 3-3 18, C. Johnson 4 3-4 13, Bonso 8 5-7 21, Lado 2 3-3 7, Jackson 3 0-0 6. 3-pointers: Cook 1, T. Johnson 3, Gaither 1, King 3, C. Johnson 2. Totals: 34 19-23 97.
LAKE LAND – Close 6 2-2 17, Tyrell 3 3-5 9, Chapman 2 2-2 6, Cox 5 6-10 16, Davis 0 1-2 1, Kuljohovic 2 0-0 4, Neal 1 0-0 2, Diof 1 0-0 2, Hussein 3 6-6 12. 3-pointers: Close 3. Totals: 23 20-27 69.
Coles County Sports 