The ‘Battle of the Bridge’ with Kentucky Wesleyan resulted in an all-out siege by the USI men. Red hot offense and stifling defense led to a 93-64 USI win.
“They took our best shot,” said Head Coach Rodney Watson. “That was the best 20 minutes [second half] of basketball we can play.”
The first half of the game was rather aggressive and led to Issac McClure and Mohamed Ntumba being pulled with 3 fouls. The bench stepped up big and proved that USI is a deep, athletic team.
The USI bench outscored Wesleyan’s 26-10. Junior Brandon Hogg and Jared Rehmel led the way with 20 and 17 points respectively.
“Coming out the second half we wanted to be agressive,” said Hogg “We had a lot of guys who were hot tonight and it worked out.”
The USI men had 5 guys who scored double digit points and 2 men with 5 assists one of which was Ntumba.
“He has great vision and is selfless out there on the court,” Watson said of Ntumba.
Senior Jared Rehmel came off the bench chopping at the bit and played a great game. The first shot he dropped of the night set the tone. With 4:04 left in the first half Rehmel dropped a 3 that put the crowd on their feet and filled the stadium with rauckous cheer. Again with 10 minutes left in the second half Ntumba stole the ball mid court, threw it to Rehmel who again dropped a stifling 3.
“Coach always tells us, you know, to always play hard when we come out [the bench],” said Rehmel “It’s easier when we have guys like Issac [McClure] and Kevin [Gant] who we have to replace, we want to play better.”
Everything clicked for the Eagles this evening and led to the best last 20 minutes of basketball they’ve played all year, according to Waston. The team made big time college plays and the league is still getting tougher.
USI plays the University of Indianapolis Saturday at 3:15 p.m. Indianapolis barely lost to number two ranked Bellarmine, 99-97 tonight.
“You can’t get full of yourself. We gotta be smart with our legs, we gotta be smart in how we approach the game,” said Watson. “You just gotta keep trying to reach your ceiling.”
The Kentucky Wesleyan game wasn’t only important because of the ‘Battle for the Bridge’ but also because this is the team where USI lost beloved Jeron Lewis.
It was a year ago last Friday that Lewis passed away at Kentucky Wesleyan mid-game. Lewis was honored before the game with a bried moment of silence.
