Late-game drought costs JWCC men opportunity to fight for top seed in region tournament

QUINCY — The chance to be the No. 1 seed in the NJCAA Division II Region 24 Tournament is gone.

The opportunity to return to the national tournament isn’t.

The John Wood Community College men’s basketball players have a pretty good grasp of what it will take to make that happen.

“We learned where we are slacking at,” sophomore guard Ja’Veon Taylor said. “With a lot of our plays, we didn’t get to our second entries. We know that’s something we have to capitalize on better in future if we want to get to the postseason.”

The inability to capitalize on a handful of plays in the second of Thursday night’s game put the Trail Blazers in this situation. Parkland outscored JWCC 16-7 over the game’s final six minutes and scored a 76-68 victory at the Student Activity Center in a Mid-West Athletic Conference makeup game.

The victory wraps up the top seed in the region tournament for the Cobras (17-7, 8-1 MWAC), while the Trail Blazers (16-12, 5-4 MWAC) will be either the No. 2 or 3 seed depending on the outcome of Saturday’s regular-season finale.

“At the end of the day, that’s the best team in the league and that’s who we’re chasing,” JWCC coach Brad Hoyt said.

Despite the loss, the Trail Blazers remain confident they can track them down.

“All throughout the season, we’ve seen some of the better teams throughout the country,” Taylor said. “Going into the postseason, we have to be ready and bring our best. We’ve seen everything. We’re not scared of anything. Whatever comes, we’ll battle it that day.”

JWCC will have to do a better job of making shots.

The Trail Blazers finished 6 of 26 from 3-point range and went 0 of 4 from the perimeter during the closing stretch. In fact, JWCC didn’t make a 3-pointer for the final 9:45 of regulation and went 2 of 15 from that range in the second half.

“I thought Parkland did a really good job of getting us uncomfortable,” Hoyt said. “But at the end of the day, we have to find ways to get guys more space to be able to make shots.”

JWCC made just one field goal on its final 13 possessions while committing four turnovers. In the same stretch, Parkland went 5 of 9 from the field.

“What we do is good enough,” Hoyt said. “I’m confident in that. The times we get out of what we do, it slows our decision making down. When that happens, it leads to bad decisions. When it gets bad, we have to think, ‘Let’s do a John Wood possession here.’ 

“It was a two-possession game with about two-and-a-half minutes to go and we had two or three straight possessions offensively and defensively that were not John Wood possessions that didn’t go our way and were probably the difference in the game.”

Jarvis Jennings led the Trail Blazers with 18 points, while Taylor had 17 points and Brandon Kracht finished with 15 points and eight rebounds.

None of them were buying fatigue as a factor for the loss. JWCC beat Lincoln Land by xx points Wednesday night, but winning in the postseason requires playing on consecutive days.

“Missed opportunities, missed some shots we normally hit,” Taylor said. “Playing back-to-back games, some guys were lacking energy, but we have to be able to fight through that. It’s just getting us ready for the tournament environment where you’ll have two games on consecutive days. This is a good test for that.”