Confidence comes in home victory as Hawks find way to get back on track

QUINCY — Coming off two disappointing losses in Michigan and with the start of Great Lakes Valley Conference play on the horizon, the Quincy University men’s basketball team needed a boost in confidence.

While the pace of play was often ragged, thanks to a combined 83 missed field goal attempts and 25 turnovers, the Hawks played well enough on defense and showed some promising flashes on offense Saturday afternoon at Pepsi Arena.

The result was a 64-45 victory over Judson University that evened QU’s record at 3-3 entering its GLVC opener Thursday at Missouri S&T. And it came with senior guard Zion Richardson, the team’s leading scorer, sitting out with an ankle sprain.

“This game was huge for us,” sophomore guard Orlando Thomas said. “Those two losses (by 42 points to Grand Valley State and by 13 to Lake Superior State) were eye-opening. We still have a lot of things to work on, but this should give a lot of guys confidence as we go into conference play.”

Thomas’ confidence certainly received a much-needed boost when he sank three 3-pointers during a three-minute stretch late in the second half to spark a 12-2 run that gave QU its biggest lead at 60-37.

Thomas entered the game having made only 3 of 20 attempts from 3-point range, an area where the Hawks have struggled mightily. They made only 2 of 19 against Grand Valley State and 4 of 24 against Lake Superior State and were shooting just 25 percent as a team.

On Saturday, however, Thomas made 4 of 8 tries to finish with a team-high 13 points, and QU was good on 10 of 28 attempts overall to help mask an unexpected 6-for-18 showing from the free-throw line.

“My teammates found me for some beautiful, wide-open shots,” Thomas said. “Coach has been giving me a lot of confidence to still shoot the ball and so have my teammates, so it was a great thing.

“But we want to get to the point where if the shots are not falling, we can still grind away and get a win. It makes it easier for us when we’re hitting shots, but that’s not going to happen every day. We just have to come in and play defense. The main thing is defense.”

Despite some lapses, QU coach Steve Hawkins was happy with the way his team defended Judson. Shooting 46 percent from the field for the season, the Eagles made only 16 of 57 field goal tries and were just 3 of 15 from 3-point range. Guard Javaris Wiggins, averaging 16.5 points per game, was limited to seven.

“One of the things we were struggling with in Michigan was consistent defensive intensity,” Hawkins said. “I thought that part of things was there (against Judson). We gambled a little bit too much when they smelled blood in the water, looking for steals and getting away from our principles, giving up a layup or an open jumper.

“But for the most part we played with heart, and that’s not what we did well in Michigan. We have to prove that when things are going south, when a good team puts an 8-0 run on us, that we respond to those situations. The jury is still out on how that is going to look.”

The Hawks also had a commanding 54-37 rebounding edge, snagging 18 on the offense end for an 18-4 advantage in second-chance points. And they had 17 assists on 24 baskets, numbers that would have been higher had they shot better than 36 percent from the field.

“The game probably looked uglier than it actually was because the ball wasn’t going in,” Hawkins said. “We had more open shots than we’ve had, and we shared the ball well. We got that without Zion, so other players had to step up and get a lot of minutes.”

Judson (2-5) never led after the opening three minutes. Mason Wujek finally put QU on the board with a turnaround jumper from the low block at the 17:12 mark. The Hawks went on to score 13 straight points as the Eagles struggled with shot clock violations, turnovers and poor shooting.

QU used five early 3-pointers to eventually build a 21-7 lead and was ahead 34-23 at halftime. It worked the ball inside to Wujek and Ibrahim Drame for easy layups to open the second half, and Isaiah Foster hit a floater from the lane and Jake Hamilton drove the baseline for another layup.

Yet, the Hawks only led 48-35 when Thomas began his 3-point barrage at the 7:31 mark that helped put the game away. Freshman John Kelly III, who had made only 1 of 12 attempts entering the game, added another 3-pointer during the spurt, his second in as many tries.

Kelly was the only other QU player in double figures with 10 points, but all 12 available players reached the scoring column.

Despite the flashes of improved perimeter shooting, Hawkins would like to see his team focus on working the ball inside more. That will be especially important, he believes, when the Hawks get in conference play against more experienced teams.

“We’re a little too much perimeter and we need to be a lot more balanced,” he said. “We’re nowhere close to being a finished product. That’s why we have to play so much harder on the defensive end of the court to allow our offense to catch up.”