Late Push Comes Up Short for Wildcats in Road Setback at Grand View

DES MOINES, Iowa - After trailing by as much as 15 in the second half, Baker men's basketball put together a strong comeback bid, but fell to Grand View, 70-63, on the road Saturday evening.

The Wildcats cut it to a three-point game on multiple occasions in the late stages, but missed a couple of crucial shots to see their valiant second-half rally fall short.

It was a pretty even matchup across the board, with GVU shooting slightly better from the field (24-of-56) and from three (7-of-19) than BU (21-of-50, 6-of-23). Bucking its season-long trend, Baker (83%) actually shot better than the Vikings (68%) at the free-throw line, with both teams sinking 15 free throws, but GVU made four more trips than BU.

Cam Jones and Myles Tucker provided a lot of the heavy lifting scoring for the Wildcats as Jones totaled a game-high 24 points, while Tucker hit three 3-pointers and finished with 15 points. Luke McDonald reached double digits for the sixth time this year, tallying 11 points.

Along with early buckets from Jones, Tucker, and Jimmy Dorsey sparked the Wildcats right off the bat with a string of three straight triples. Tucker's second long-range bomb of the opening minutes made it a 13-9 lead for BU as the visitors maintained a slight edge through the first 10 minutes of the contest.

A couple of free throws from McDonald made it a six-point BU lead with less than 10 minutes left until halftime, before the Wildcats hit a wall offensively and GVU started to climb back in it. Tucker eventually snapped Baker's five-minute scoring drought, which Grand View was unable to fully capitalize on.

Tucker and Jones kept it a back-and-forth battle down the stretch of the first half, with Tucker draining his third trey of the half to cut the deficit to two. The Vikings closed with five unanswered points, though, to take a 42-35 halftime lead.

Grand View opened up the second half with a 12-4 spurt to swing the one-possession game from late in the first half to a double-digit lead just seven minutes into the latter frame. Lucas Lyons converted a three-point play to limit the damage for BU.

After a GVU three brought the score to 58-47 at the 10:12 mark, Baker flipped the script defensively and held the Vikings to just one measly field goal the rest of the way, while trying to gain enough ground offensively to fully complete its comeback charge.

A three by McDonald got the Wildcats as close as they had been in a while, making it a three-point game at 61-58 with just over six minutes left to play. From there, the game went into a bit of a free-throw battle with Jones' free throw bringing the 'Cats within three again with 1:52 remaining.

The Vikings went 6-for-8 at the line in the final two minutes and Baker's shots fell short as Grand View held on to escape with the 70-63 victory.

Up next, Baker continues the conference road trek with a midweek matchup at Peru State on Wednesday, February 4, at 7:30 p.m. in Peru, Neb.

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