Jared Shlensky
Sports Editor
After losing three straight CCIW games, the men’s basketball team bounced back with a 72-64 victory over local rival Elmhurst College on Saturday.
Leading the way for the Cardinals in a back-and-forth contest was senior shooting guard Vince Kmiec, who finished with a game-high 24 points and four steals. Kmiec came into Saturday’s game averaging a team-high 12 field goal attempts per game and six from beyond the arc.
But on Saturday Kmiec took 13 shots, but only four from 3-point range, something head Coach Todd Raridon was pleased to see.
“Vince’s game has always been, even since high school, 3-point shooting,” said Raridon. “But not every shot has to be a 3-point shot, they can be 2-point shots, and against Elmhurst I thought he (Kmiec) did a great job of getting open.”
Leading 22-14 with 4:30 remaining in the first half, the Cardinals quickly saw their lead go away as the Blue Jays used a 15-4 run to take a 29-26 lead after one half of play.
Trailing 36-34 seven minutes into the second half, the Cardinals evened the game at 36 all, thanks to back-to-back buckets from junior forward Jack Burchett, who finished with 12 points, all of which came in the second half, and a team-high eight rebounds.
After both teams continued to exchange buckets for the next eight minutes of play, North Central pulled away in the final five minutes of play courtesy of 19-11 run, preserving a big win for NCC according to Kmiec.
“Starting off the conference season 1-3 you put yourself in a tough position,” said Kmiec. “We knew that we had to get a win no matter what we did and if we didn’t, we’d probably be out of the picture early.”
Also scoring in double-figures for the Cards vs. Elmhurst was senior forward Landon Gamble, who finished with 19 points, four rebounds and a game-high six assists.
Despite losing four games in the nonconference season and four games already in conference play, Coach Raridon believes the team’s goals really haven’t changed.
“Our goal still is to win the conference and we’re probably going to have win out to do so,” said Raridon. “But at the same time our other goal is to finish in the top four (in the CCIW) and that’s still realistic.”
And with nine guaranteed games remaining, six of which are against the current top four teams in the CCIW, the Cardinals are going to need to catch fire sooner rather than later.
But North Central is not new to seeing its teams struggle early in the season and still find a way to get into the CCIW tournament, or even win the conference tournament.
In the 2011-2012 season, the Cards lost five of its first 11 nonconference games, but still found a way to win the CCIW regular season, the conference tournament and advance all the way to the sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.
And for Kmiec, this current squad reminds him a lot of that 2011-2012 team that won six straight games and 13 of its final 15 games despite struggling early in the season.
“That’s exactly what I was telling the team a few days ago,” said Kmiec. “Some of the guys don’t know much about that team, but this team reminds me a lot of my sophomore year. We struggled early on, got it going during conference, got a few key wins, which we’re looking for right now, and if we can get those, and get guys playing with confidence, it makes a big difference.”
North Central gets back to the hardwood January 29 on the road against the Augustana College Vikings.
