In spite of the best efforts of the men’s basketball team, the Tigers were trampled by the Hastings Broncos Wednesday night at Lynn Farrell Arena in Hastings.
After suffering a disappointing 99-71 loss, the men weren’t happy with their performance.
Head Coach Ian Brown said that Hastings won very easily.
“We let a good shooting team get hot and we couldn’t stop them,” he said. “We just let them get going early.”
Sophomore forward Bryan Meyer said that the game was tough from the start.
“We struggled pretty severely on the defensive end,” he said. “It was ugly.”
Sophomore guard Austin Benson said he agreed that the Tigers started struggling in the beginning.
“It started going downhill in the first half,” he said. “We couldn’t step up our game and keep up with their fast breaks. We made a run toward the end of the half, but the turnovers got the best of us. Then in the second half we just couldn’t get over being shaken.”
With Hastings shooting 59.5 percent from the field in the first half, Doane fell behind and stayed there, falling to 58-39 just before halftime. The Broncos continued to play well in the second half, gaining a 33-point lead for a while.
“They couldn’t miss (a shot),” Meyer said. “And we couldn’t stop them.”
Brown said that there was not much the team could do to improve before their next game Saturday.
“We’ve just got to get our guys believing they can play with anyone,” he said. “I know they can.”
Meyer said that he expected practice to be intense for the next two days.
“We’ll definitely be working on defense,” he said. “I’m betting we push our defensive drills a lot.”
Benson said that he thought the team needed to work on fundamentals before Saturday.
“We just need to work on being crisp and taking care of the ball better,” he said. “If we do that and step up our defense, we’ll be ready for Briar Cliff (on Saturday).”
The Tigers will head to Sioux City, Iowa on Saturday to take on Briar Cliff University.
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