Master’s Slogs Through Slowdown to Prevail Over Azusa Pacific, 80-71

Azusa Pacific basketball Coach Terry Layton concedes that his team is a notch below the top teams in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics District 3, but he claims that, on a given night, the Cougars can play with anybody in the district.

Saturday was one of those nights.

Utilizing a slow-down offensive set Layton referred to as “crazy,” Azusa Pacific drove the Master’s College nuts for the first 30 minutes.

But Master’s superior depth and pressure defense finally prevailed and the Mustangs pulled away for an 80-71 victory at Master’s.

“It’s a great statement of how far our program has come, that a team has to come in here and run a delay to try to beat us,” said Master’s Coach Mel Hankinson, whose team has won 11 of its past 13 games and 17 of 25 overall.

“Their strategy was to shorten the game by taking time off the clock, and we went after them with our pressure,” Hankinson said. “John Wooden established that, if you press for 40 minutes, at one point the other team is going to break. And they did.”

But Azusa Pacific (12-14, 7-9 in the district) held together for more than a half and led for a better part of the first 20 minutes.

Once the Cougars broke the Mustangs’ press, Layton had them pull the ball outside and eat up some of the 45-second clock. After a short time, Layton would walk up the sideline and yell “Crazy! Crazy!” to his players, who would then work for a shot.

“It’s just a lot of motion,” Layton explained. “We run three guys at them and let them go crazy.”

The slower pace frustrated the up-tempo Mustangs in the first half while they fought back from a 24-17 deficit to take a 37-34 halftime lead on Tom Bruner’s put-back basket at the buzzer.

Master’s, which leads the district with a 9-2 record, had 10 more first-half shots than Azusa Pacific but shot just 41% from the field. Azusa Pacific, getting high-percentage shots thanks to its patience, made 48% in the first half.

The Mustangs got the jump on the Cougars in the second half when, as they prepared to inbound at the outset of play, they purposely lined up under Azusa Pacific’s basket and drew the Cougars to them. The Master’s Jeff Newton then took the inbounds pass and raced uncontested in the opposite direction to score a layup.

The Mustangs then went to work on defense, forcing 10 second-half turnovers, and they raced to a 47-37 lead with less than four minutes gone. But the Cougars hung close and trailed just 56-52 when Raul Lopez sank one of his five three-point baskets with less than 10 minutes to play.

But Master’s reeled off 12 of the next 14 points, seven of them by reserve forward Stuart Epperson, who led the Mustangs with 16 points on seven-of-11 shooting.

Azusa Pacific was eventually forced to abandon its delay tactics and step up the pace, and the Cougars couldn’t keep up with the quicker Mustangs, who led by as many as 17 points.