LANGSTON, Okla. – The No. 1 Mid-America Christian men's basketball completed the most dominant regular season in program history at Langston, as the Evangels survived a Lions rally to come away with a 75-69 victory at C.L. Gayles Fieldhouse on Saturday.
Mid-America Christian (29-1, 19-1 Sooner Athletic Conference) will head into the SAC Tournament as the top-seed and will host eighth-seeded Southwestern Christian on Tuesday, Mar. 3 in the quarterfinal round.
The victory also set a new program record for most wins in a single season during the NAIA era for the program, surpassing the 2015-16 NAIA National Championship squad that finished 28-9. The Evangels are just one win away from tying the 2003-04 squad that finished 30-7 and won the NCCAA Division II National Championship, which happened before MACU moved up to the NAIA level prior to the start of the 2007-08 campaign.
Terrance Jones led the Evangels with his second straight 20-10 double-double, scoring a team-high 20 points on 8-for-15 shooting and made 3-for-3 from the foul line to go with 10 rebounds and two blocks.
Jones came up with the biggest basket of the ballgame, as his offensive rebound on Dominick Ford's missed three and putback with 36 seconds left put the Evangels up by two possessions.
The Evangels struggled offensively in the early going, not scoring a single point through the first 3:17 as Langston (14-16, 6-14 SAC) jumped out to a 5-0 lead.
Ford got MACU on the board with a fastbreak layup with 16:42 remaining, but Langston's Stevie Pringle put the Lions back up by five at 7-2 with just over 15 minutes left.
Ford continued to be the MACU offense over the next three minutes, knocking down a pair of threes to cut the Langston lead to 9-8 before Jones put the Evangels in-front by rebounding his own missed shot and putting it back in to make it 10-9 with 10:05 to go.
The Lions fought back to tie it at 12 with a John Godwin three and reclaimed the advantage with a Ryan Scales jumper, but MACU countered as Jones' three-point play put the Evangels ahead again while Damarius Brooks knocked down a three on the ensuing possession to stretch the edge to 18-14 with 7:38 remaining until the half.
Langston could only cut the Mid-America Christian advantage down to two twice over the next five minutes, with the last coming on an Andrew Reddick free throw with 1:12 left to make it a 29-27 game.
However, the Evangels went into the locker room with all the momentum as Ashford Golden drained a three with 48 seconds left and Jones recorded another offensive rebound and putback with 24 seconds left to extend MACU's edge to 34-27 at the half.
While MACU could only muster 11-for-27 (40.7 percent) shooting in the first half, the Evangels had a lot of success from behind the arc, knocking down 7-for-12 (58.3 percent) from downtown while also going 5-for-5 from the free throw line.
Meanwhile, the Evangels defense held Langston to just 10-for-31 (32.3 percent) from the field and 3-for-10 (30 percent) from the three-point arc.
The Lions held the momentum out of the halftime break, going on a 6-0 run after Cedric Wright's opening bucket of the half, trimming the MACU lead to 36-33 just 1:52 in.
Just like in the first half, it was Ford jumpstarting the Evangels offense in the second half as his three ignited a 10 unanswered run, capped off on a Marvin Lowe and-one and a Tony Dorsey jumper to bring the score to 46-33 with 15:34 to go.
A Langston free throw stopped the run, but Jones gave the Evangels their largest lead of the game on the next possession to make it 48-34 with 13:56 remaining.
The Lions briefly brought it back to within single digits at 50-41 after stringing together five unanswered, but D'von Moore had an answer with a three with 12:09 left to push it back to double-figures.
Mid-America Christian maintained its two-figure advantage for the next seven-plus minutes until Langston's Alfonso Anderson scored to bring it to an eight-point game 63-55 with 4:39 to go.
A pair of Moore free throws temporarily brought the MACU edge back to double-digits, but the Lions continued to chip away at the MACU lead over the next three minutes until Scales score with 1:10 left made it a one-possession game at 71-69.
Following an LU timeout, Jones came up with a clutch play by snagging Ford's missed three and putting it back in with 38 seconds left to push the edge back to two possessions.
The Evangels defense came up big on the next Langston possession as Ford blocked a shot and forced Langston into committing a turnover with 13 seconds on the clock.
Langston tried to force a turnover before fouling Ford with six seconds left and he knocked down both free throws to seal the 75-69 victory.
Mid-America Christian was far more efficient on the offensive end in the second half, shooting 16-for-28 (57.1 percent) from the field, but cooled off from three-point range by going 3-of-9 (33.3 percent). Langston also shot much better in the second half, making 15-for-29 (51.8 percent), but was also cold shooting from range at 2-for-8 (25 percent).
Joining Jones in double-figures was Ford with 16 points on a blistering 5-for-7 from the field and 4-of-5 from three to go with five rebounds. Dorsey was only other Evangel to crack double-digits with 11 points on 4-for-8 shooting to go with a team-best five assists.
Mid-America Christian will tip-off the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament Quarterfinal against Southwestern Christian on Tuesday, Mar. 3 at 7:45 p.m. inside the Gaulke Activity Center.
