FARGO — When Marial Deng hit his final two free throws of the game, he surpassed 1,000 points for his career.
Until then, he’d been 0-for-4 from the stripe. He didn’t score in the second half until there was 3:15 left in the game.
No. 3 seed Four Winds/Minnewaukan (22-4) was eliminated from state title contention with a 64-57 loss to No. 6 seed Shiloh Christian (20-5) at the Fargodome on Thursday.
“When I went into the locker room, the only thing I could write on the board was ‘little things,’” Indians head coach Rick Smith said. “Little things are gonna win you basketball games, and little things are gonna lose you basketball games. And I thought the little things lost us a basketball game tonight. We’d get to that top of that mountain; we just couldn’t get over the top.”
FW/M went 17-for-28 from the free throw line.
Shiloh Christian went 22-for-29, including 12-for-14 from Dawson Davis.
The Indians scored just 19 in the first half, with a scoreless drought of four minutes and 30 seconds to start the game.
Shiloh Christian led 10-2 nearly six minutes in.
The Indians got an early spark from Keyson Littlewind to stay in it. It was Littlewind’s first game back after a six-week suspension. He had an and-one, along with 5-of-7 free throw shooting in the first half. He was tied with Jonte Delorme with a team-high seven first-half points.
“He hasn’t played for a while, so he’s got some rust in him, but I thought he brought the intensity that we needed to get back in the basketball game,” Smith said.
Deng made his first two baskets of the game early in the second quarter, tying it at 13-13.
Shiloh Christian took around three minutes to score in the second quarter. But the Skyhawks’ three-point shooting allowed them to stay narrowly ahead of the Indians for the rest of the half. They went 6-for-13 from three-point range in the first half, with four of those coming in the second quarter.
Shiloh Christian didn’t score any other way in the second quarter until there were 8.3 seconds left. The Skyhawks went just 6-for-21 in two-point field goals all afternoon.
A triple by Delorme, and a 1-of-2 trip to the free throw line for Dayson Dubois, made it 19-19.
The Skyhawks finished the half on an 8-0 run, fueled by back-to-back triples from Xavier Balkowitsch and Davis.
The Indians trailed 27-19 going into the locker room.
“They played physical defense on us and kept us out of the paint until the second half,” Smith said. “It just seemed like everything was going their way, and nothing was going our way.”
Delorme had an and-one early in the second half, going on to score eight in the second half and a team-high 15 overall.
FW/M got within three points in the third quarter, and four in the fourth, but never came all the way back.
Littlewind reached four fouls in the middle of the third. He came back in the fourth quarter but fouled out with 4:09 left, after he’d just hit a triple to make it 48-42.
Littlewind’s 10 points were tied with Deng for second on the team.
“Keyson’s probably a little too aggressive,” Smith said. “But that’s Keyson. He’s gonna play his butt off when he’s out there, and he brought the energy. We really could have used them there down in those stretches.”
Jack Pelham and Landon Unger each hit two triples for Shiloh Christian in the second half.
“We started getting downhill there in a stretch, and then they could dunk down a big three on us just to kind of break our back a little bit,” Smith said.
Joran Lohnes, after not scoring in the first half, added seven off the bench for the Indians in the second half.
A Deng drive to the rim cut the deficit to 50-46. But he missed the subsequent free throw.
Down 57-52 with 42.8 seconds on the clock, Deng got to the line again. But he missed both free throws.
“He started to get to the rim, but he had a heck of a time finishing,” Smith said. “Marial’s a 90% free throw shooter, and he missed his first four tonight, and just couldn’t believe it. When we wanted somebody at the free throw line, that’s the guy we want. And just could not knock them down. You have games like that, I guess. And tonight, he’ll be the first to admit that he didn’t have his best game.”
By then, the Indians had to play catch-up.
“We missed a ton of key, key free throws in the game,” Smith said. “And those are little things. Offensive rebounds. Those are little things. They lose you games. And we just had too many of those tonight.”
Shiloh Christian’s Davis made his final 12 free throws of the game to spoil FW/M’s comeback chances.
Deng was fouled in three-point range with 2.3 seconds left. He missed his first free throw, then made his final two.
The announcement that he’d reached 1,000 points for his career was followed seconds later with the final horn of a state quarterfinal defeat.
“They left it out on the floor,” Smith said. “We played hard. It’s just that we didn’t make our own breaks.”
The Indians will play the rest of the state tournament in the consolation bracket.
On Friday at 1 p.m., they’ll face No. 7 seed Turtle Mountain, which they beat 81-62 earlier this month.
“You want to finish 2-0. There’s no doubt about it,” Smith said. “We’re going against a Belcourt team that we’ve seen before. We probably had a little tougher loss than they did tonight. And so the biggest thing we’ve got to do is get our kids’ heads out of the sand. They’re sticking their heads in the sand right now because they wanted to get to tomorrow evening and just didn’t get it done.”
FW/M could still finish fifth at state on Saturday.
“The seniors have got two games left,” Smith said. “And the younger guys, let’s learn. Let’s keep playing in the state tournament so next year, if you get a chance to get in here…they’ll have a little more state experience underneath their belts.”
Leave a Reply