Indians rebound for 84-68 win over Arkansas Baptist

Indians rebound for 84-68 win over Arkansas Baptist
Adam Gore/LetsGoICC.com

LITTLE ROCK, AR – The Itawamba Community College men's basketball team rebounded from a disappointing loss to Lawson State Community College with an 84-68 road victory over Arkansas Baptist College on Tuesday.

"I was proud of how the guys worked in practice and during the game," said ICC head basketball coach Grant Pate. "You could tell they knew they didn't give their best effort against Lawson and didn't want to repeat that type of performance tonight. This win is bigger than what shows up on our record and hopefully we can build on all the positives that came from this game."

After shooting 18 percent from behind the arch against Lawson State, the Indians connected on 7-of-10 (65.7%) three-point attempts with sophomore Deontaye Ewing (Tupelo) hitting on all three of his attempts.

"We had a really good shoot around for the past few days," Pate said. "We worked on ball movement and setting better screens to be able to get better shot selections instead of forcing more shot attempts."

Ewing finished with a game-high 22 while fellow sophomore Tre' Wells (Tuscaloosa, AL) added 15 points and 14 rebounds for his first double-double of the season in the win.

"Deontaye was frustrated with himself and the way he played against Lawson and really took it upon himself to be the leader we needed him to be," Pate commented. "I really thought Deontaye and the rest of the team were able to feed off the emotion and heart that Tre' played with tonight. He showed a lot of heart in the loss to Lawson and we challenged him to bring that to the floor again tonight and I felt like he did that and then some."

Freshman Jacques Johnson (Jackson) came off the bench to score 13 points, hitting on 3-of-3 from the floor and 7-of-9 from the free throw line.

"Jacq has been solid for us so far this season," said Pate. "He is getting more and more confidence of being able to play on this level. I feel like he and a few other of our freshman are starting to catch up with the speed of the game on this level and hopefully that will start showing up in how they play night in and night out."

ICC made 23-of-35 (65.7%) from the charity stripe on the night.

Bryan Tardy and Mike Howard came off the bench to pace Arkansas Baptist with 10 points each.