Cardinals fall to San Jose State in final game in Bahamas

Nov 17, 2023

In the third day of its three day tournament at the Baha Mar Hoops Championship Tournament in Nassau, Bahamas, Ball State Men's Basketball fell to San Jose State in a game that went down to the wire.

The Spartans came back in the final minutes of the game to set up the go ahead bucket scored by forward Robert Vaihola.

Ball State's biggest problem was they’re ability to knock down shots in the first half. The Cardinals shot 8 of 39 (20 percent) from the to start the game, whereas the Spartans shot 12 of 24 (50 percent) and kept themselves intact with a zone defense that allowed no separation from the ball to a second Spartan forcing a double team.

The first half brought many scoring droughts for the Cardinals to the point where they were being outscored drastically early on in the game. The Cardinals had a three and a half minute scoring drought where the Spartans took advantage and went on to control the lead in the game.

The second half came and the Cardinals were focused on making the adjustments that head coach Michael Lewis preached as they were down by seven. Going to work, they seemed really in tune with finding ways to get stops on the defensive end and making the most out of San Jose State's mistakes.

Coming off of the poor shooting performance in the first half, four of Ball State's five starters went into double figures in the second half to catch up and then carry a lead against the Spartans.

Going into the finals moments of the game the Cardinals were surprised with a comeback brought by the Spartans where they were put to the test to really stay out of foul trouble and play with a more conservative and calm approach.

The Spartans went on a scoring run midway through the second half by hitting five straight shots with about 11 minutes left in the game.

As the Cardinals and the Spartans traded off lead changes it all came down to the end of it all with both teams in the bonus and the clock under a minute.

Sophomore guard Jaylin Seller knocked down both of his crucial free throws to bring the Cardinals to a 65-65 tie, soon after the inbound San Jose State made it down the court where guard Omari Moore went in for a layup that and missed. The missed layup was then picked up by Vaihola, who then put the shot back up off the glass to leave the Spartans with a 67-65 lead with only 1.7 seconds left on the clock.

Ball State attended to make the long ball across the court but Vaihola was there with his second steal of the game and the Cardinals' seventh overall turnover.

That concluded the Cardinals trip to the Bahamas, they look to recover from the loss in Pittsburgh where they'll play Duquesne Dec. 3rd at 2:00 p.m.

Contact Calvin Scott with comments at [email protected] or on Twitter @CalvinAJScott.

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