Concordia Advances in NAIA With an Upset

Concordia’s first appearance in NAIA Division I men’s basketball tournament Wednesday proved upsetting, at least for third-seeded Lindsey Wilson, which lost to the unseeded Eagles, 90-77, in a first-round game.

Concordia (21-15) used a 17-0 run midway through the second half to erase a one-point halftime deficit and advance to a second-round game this morning against unseeded Columbia (Mo.) Columbia (23-7) beat Birmingham-Southern (Ala.), 62-56, Wednesday.

The Eagles were the first team in the last five years of the tournament to beat a No. 3-seeded team in the first round.

“I felt we were overmatched coming into the game,” Concordia Coach Greg Marshall said, “but I believed in this team and they just kept getting better.”

Guard Josh Giles led Concordia with 25 points. Center Harold Hoffman had 21 points and guard Joel Burgess 17. Hoffman and Burgess each had eight rebounds.

“Burgess is our warrior on the court,” Marshall said. “He kept us in the game in the first half and pumped up the rest of the team.”

Lindsey Wilson (29-5), of Columbia, Ky., held a 42-40 lead with 17 minutes 40 seconds remaining in the game, but the Blue Raiders failed to score on 11 consecutive possessions and Concordia took a 57-42 lead with 12:02 left to play.

With Brian Vander Wal holding Lindsey Wilson’s leading scorer, Brent Connelly, to 10 points, seven below his average, the Blue Raiders tried to recover behind the three-point arc. They made only nine of 36 attempts for the game.

“Defensively, we took away their inside game and dared them to shoot the three,” Marshall said. “There’s a lot of dead bodies strewn around the NAIA tournament from teams that tried to win by the three.”

Said Giles: “It was all about confidence. . . . We proved to ourselves and everyone that we belong here.”

Richard Sutherland scored 20 points for the Blue Raiders before fouling out. Teammate Torian Richards, who had a game-high nine rebounds, also fouled out.

Lindsey Wilson Coach Steve Dodd was disappointed in his team’s defense. “We didn’t do a good job of defending them and we put them on the line a lot,” he said. “We just didn’t show much patience.”

Concordia shot 42% from the field (25 of 59) but was deadly from the free-throw line, making 33 of 39 (85%)--14 of 18 in the final two minutes to seal the victory.

Lindsey Wilson, which lost its third first-round game in as many years, shot only four free throws, making two, and made only 38% of its shots from the field (33 of 88).