KANSAS CITY, Mo. – There have been a lot of firsts in Austin Johnson's tenure at LC State, but the 83-56 victory over SAGU on Monday night is the most important so far. After narrowly edging Loyola (La.) in overtime in the quarterfinal, the third-seeded Warriors made it look easy in the National Semifinal with 16 3-pointers including 11 in the first half. With the victory, LC State will play for the 2021 NAIA Men's Basketball National Championship on Tuesday night.
"Our guys were really connected tonight on both ends of the floor," Johnson said. "Obviously we shot it really well and that will get a lot of attention, but our defense set the tone early and that led to a lot of rhythm, pace and confidence for us."
The Warriors jumped out to an early lead with the sharp-shooting of Hodges Bailey and the rest of the LC State squad. Nine of the first 10 Warrior baskets were 3-pointers. The defense did its part in holding a potent SAGU offense at bay.
"SAGU has been an elite offensive team this year and holding them to under 33-percent shooting shows you the character of our players and how much they value our team's identity. Tomorrow will be a fun battle against an elite team. We'll need to recover quickly and be even tougher if we're going to give ourselves an opportunity to win."
Hodges Bailey opened things up with a 3 that was quickly matched by SAGU. The Lions struck for one more to take a 6-3 lead before Damek Mitchell turned an offense rebound into a triple. Bailey and Travis Yenor went back-to-back from downtown to make it 12-6 LC State at 16:44. A dunk by Khalil Stevenson broke up the 3-point party and extended the run to eight points.
Trystan Bradley, Bailey and Yenor kept the 3s raining in the first half. By the 11-minute mark the Warriors had hit nine shots from beyond the arc to grow the advantage to 29-16.
Nathan Fromm and Silas Bennion brought fresh legs into the game and scored their first points of the game soon after subbing in. An and-one play by Mitchell gave the Warriors a 38-25 cushion at 8:47. Bradley drained the 10
th 3 of the game with just over seven minutes on the clock, and after a short scoring drought Bailey hit a shot from deep to make it 44-27.
Bailey drained a pair of foul shots in the last minute and Fromm made his way to the basket to give the Warriors a 50-35 lead at the break.
SAGU scored first in the second half, but Bradley answered right back for LC State. Yenor picked up on the momentum from the first half with a 3 to keep the lead at 15, 55-40, at 16:31. A run by the Lions cut the Warrior advantage to 10 at 14:11, but a technical sent Mitchell to the free throw line for one shot to keep the lead at double-digits and give LC the ball. Yenor capitalized with a layup on the possession to make it a 13-point game.
Jake Albright fought through traffic to grab an offense board and put it back to push the lead back to 15 at 12:40. Mitchell got to the basket for a layup to bring the score to 62-47, and a pair of foul shots by Fromm grew the margin by two.
Bailey hit his sixth 3 of the game on an assist from Stevenson to give LC State a 21-point lead with 8:01 left in the game. He added his seventh from deep 90 seconds later.
LC State added baskets from Fromm and Bradley in the final five minutes before finishing off SAGU 83-56.
Bailey led the Warriors with 25 points in the contest and was 7-for-9 from the field, all from 3-point range. Mitchell added 16 points, Yenor had 14 on four 3s and Bradley scored 13. As a team, LC State drained 16 3s at a .444 shooting percentage. They shot 45.2 percent from the floor.
"Obviously some of the shots we were able to get were a lot more uncontested than previous nights," Bailey said. "Some of that is their defense, they really get into you, but if you weather the storm and get 10 to 15 seconds in your possession you're going to love the shots you get."
On the defensive end, Mitchell led the team in rebounds with six. Yenor and Stevenson each had five. Bradley passed Jacob Wiley for second all-time in blocks with two tonight to give him 102 in his career.
The team led a balanced attack in assists with five from Mitchell and four each from Yenor and Stevenson.
"You can look at the stats and base things off of that," Bailey continued, "but Damek and Khalil are really the ones that set us up because they were bringing the ball up 94 feet every time. That was huge for us, that they didn't turn it over and they got us those assists."
LC State held SAGU to a 32.8 shooting percentage from the field and 31.8 from behind the arc. They dished out 10 more assists, 19-9, and forced 12 turnovers.
The Warriors for play in the program's first-ever national title game on Tuesday night at 5 p.m. PT. They will face fifth-seeded Shawnee State (Ohio) in the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo.
They game will be aired on ESPN3 and can be viewed locally at Zany's. Brian Danner will be on the call for KOZE. All links to coverage will be available on lcwarriors.com.
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