Pride fall to Central Methodist by 84-65 final

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Closing out their week on their home floor, the Clarke University men's basketball team was unable to get back into the win column, losing to Central Methodist University 84-65 on Saturday afternoon.

The Eagles and Pride played nearly identical scoring halves of basketball with CMU scoring exactly 42 points in each half and Clarke scored 32 points in the first half to do just one better in the second half with a 33 point final 20 minutes of basketball in the Kehl Center.

CMU would jump out to a 10-0 run to start the game over the first near three minutes of the game before Maximiliano Bowman would get Clarke on the board with their first basket but the Eagles would stay in front despite CU going on a little run to pull as close as down four at 20-16.

That would be the closest the Pride would pull to in the first half as a 15-4 run from Central Methodist would give them a 15-point lead at 35-20 before a long stretch of offensive struggles from both sides would keep the game at 40-27 from the final media timeout until back-to-back Clarke buckets put the game back to a nine-point CMU lead prior to the half ending at that 42-32 margin.

The second half would have much a similar feel as the Pride would cut into the Eagles lead to make it a seven-point game early in the half at 44-37 but Central Methodist would again go on a run to jump back up by double figures and pull away to lead by as many as 23 points late in the second half before closing out their 19-point win.

Three members of the Eagles had double figures led by 20 points from Destin Jenkins as Bol Tong added 16 and Brandon Tchouya had 13 points while Bowman was the only member of the Pride over 10 points with his 15-point performance as he was supported by nine points each from Jordan DiBenedetto and Devon Junghans off the bench.

Clarke was unable to find much of a rhythm offensively, finishing the game shooting 24-of-76 (31.6%) from the field as they won the turnover battle 21-11 but were unable to produce many second-chance opportunities as CMU grabbed 45 of their 51 rebounds on the defensive end to outrebound CU 51-29.

Pride men's basketball will be away from game action over the next six days with Clarke's finals week starting on Monday as the next game for CU will be on Saturday, Dec. 14 when they host MidAmerica Nazarene University for a 2:00 p.m. CT scheduled tip in the Kehl Center.