Kings 82 Broncos 71
The Red Deer College Kings looked more like themselves Saturday and it showed on the scoreboard.
On Friday the Kings got into a road shootout with the Olds Broncos and came out on the wrong end of a 103-98 score in Alberta Colleges Athletics Conference men’s basketball play.
The Kings (4-2) returned home Saturday and returned to a more defensive games and finished with an 82-71 victory over the Broncos (3-3).
“It was a solid defensive effort, more our style of basketball,” said Kings head coach Clayton Pottinger. “Last night’s game was an anomaly. When we get in shootouts we don’t do well. We need to defend and control the tempo and we did a better job of that tonight.”
The Kings held the high-scoring Broncos to just nine points in the first quarter, taking a 23-9 lead. RDC led 39-24 at the half but Olds narrowed the gap to 58-48 after three quarters.
One of the reasons for the Kings’ success on the defensive end was being able to control South Division scoring leader Kaleel Faiz. Benny Bankazo went head-to-head with him the majority of the time and held Faiz to 10 points.
“Benny did a great job on him,” said Pottinger. “We made some adjustments on him and (Anthony Heintzman), who had seven threes on Friday. Thankfully we got them a little more out of rhythm today.”
Heintzman did manage three three-pointers and 11 points overall.
The Kings were the better team on the evening holding a 54-44 edge in rebounds and connected on 47.7 per cent of their field goals while limiting Olds to 31.0 per cent.
“We had a lot of resolve in our locker room after last night,” said Pottinger. “It was a bit of an embarrassment ... We came back tonight to prove something to ourselves in that we can play our style of basketball when the chips are down. That was huge for this young group of guys trying to come together.”
Bankazo was named the Kings player of the game, finishing with 16 points, 15 rebounds and three assists to go with his solid defence. Jacob Cusumano and Marcelus Clay added 14 points each and JP Leblanc 13.
Philips Jalalpoor led the Broncos with 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists. Giovanni Shettler had 11 points and 14 boards.
Broncos 63 Queens 40
The RDC Queens (0-6) also played a stronger defensive game than they did in an 84-57 loss at Olds Friday, but their offence was missing for most of the game, and as a result fell 63-40 to the Broncos (6-0).
The Queens trailed 18-12 after the first quarter, but managed to score only five points in both the second and third quarters. They trailed 36-17 at the half and 49-22 after three quarters.
“The issue right now is that we take plays off and we have to stop,” said Queens head coach Ken King. “We play great defence for 20 seconds, then take a second off and get burned. It’s the same thing on the offensive end. We decide not to cut, or make a good pass, or take a good shot and it kills us.”
The Queens are also not getting any scoring from their inside players, managing just four points from their forwards.
“Our shots weren’t falling like we hoped,” said King. “In fact overall, it was as bad as it has been all year.”
Dedra Janvier led the Queens with 14 points and six rebounds while Cassidy Hollingsworth and Morgan Dool added six points each. Renetha Burton had 20 points and 15 boards for Olds with Marie Lupe adding 10 and nine.
RDC host Lethbridge College Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.