GARDEN CITY - The NCCC men's basketball team concluded its lengthy road trip on Saturday evening, losing to the Brocbusters of Garden City Community College 87-80 in Garden City, KS. The Broncbusters would connect on14 three-pointers for the game while the third-best scoring team in the conference was stone-cold making only 4 threes on the night.

Head Coach Jeremy Coombs stated, "We just flat didn't shoot it well. If this team can hang their hat on anything it's the fact that we can flat stoke the basketball, but it just happened to be one of those nights and it bit us in the tail."
 

The first five minutes would look like a back-and-forth heavyweight boxing match. But it was the Busters who would take a 19-15 lead at the first half media time. The Busters would quickly make a run pushing their lead to the largest of the night 32-21 with 6:32 remaining in the first half.  But it was Neosho who responded with 14 straight points to take a 37-33 advantage at the midway point.

"We had a stretch where we let them pull away, but I knew my guys would battle back. "We need to do a better job of not allowing that to happen. If we do things the way we're supposed to we go into the half up 15-points not just up by 4-points" –Coach Jeremy Coombs.
 

In the first half it was Neosho's Deondre Buggage who blistered the Busters for 19 points on 7 of 10 shooting and it was Panther big man De'Antray Hughes who dunked his way to his fourth double-double of the season after throwing down a monster slam right on Garden's 6'10 freshman Mohamed Diarra. Hughes would ultimately be called for a technical foul for taunting giving him his fourth foul of the game.

Coombs on the Hughes technical, "it looked ugly because Dray dunked on him and the kid fell down. I don't think he did anything that warranted a tech but it is what it is."

Hughes would pick up his fifth foul shortly after on a block charge with 6:37 left to play. Both teams would go back and forth the remainder of the game, but it was Garden City squeaking out a seven-point win.

"Ultimately we had the fouls at the end and they made free throws so they were able to make it a seven-point victory, but the guys battled, we just couldn't buy a bucket late. I'm pleased with our effort as we didn't shoot well and really could have just laid down", said Coombs.

Garden shot a season best 52 percent making 14 of 28 three-pointers while Neosho shot 43 percent and made just 4 of 17 three-pointers.  Neosho would win the glass 34 to 20 and limited the turnovers to just 11 while forcing Garden into 14 turnovers for the game. 

Coach Coombs final thoughts on the game, "it's tough to win games when you shoot 23 percent from three and 63 percent from the free-throw line. You won't see this team do that very often, so I'm not worried about this one".

 
KEY STATISTICS
-- For the game, Neosho finished shooting 43.1 percent from the field, 23.5 percent from three-point land and 23.5 percent from the charity stripe.
-- The Panthers were led by Deondre Buggage (27pts), Tremaine Chelsey (17pts), De'Antray Hughes (11pts), and Daniel Titus added (10pts).
-- Panthers forward De'Antray Hughes recorded his 4th double-double of the season with 11 points and 11 rebounds. 

UP NEXT
The Panthers return home Wednesday as the Seward County Saints come to Chanute. The Panthers will seek revenge as they lost to the Saints last season by four points in the Greenhouse in Liberal, KS. The tip is set for 7:30 PM in the Panther Gymnasium.  
 
For more information, go to www.goneosho.com or follow @GoNeoshoHoops or GoNeosho on Twitter for updates throughout the year.