At 22-7 overall, the Lake Erie men\u2019s basketball has put itself in good spot to secure a bid in the upcoming NCAA D-II tournament.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean the Storm are satisfied to this point. On March 3, Coach Kyle Conley\u2019s team held off visiting Kentucky Wesleyan in a Great Midwest Athletic Conference tournament quarterfinal, 86-80, for its 10th straight victory.<\/p>\n
The 22 wins are the most for the program in Division II. Under former coach Cliff Hunt in 2006-07, LEC was 25-3 as a D-III program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve shown our grit. We\u2019re finding a way to win,\u201d said Conley about his team\u2019s 10-game winning streak. \u201cWe\u2019re getting stops and making some shots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Up next for the current Storm team, the No. 2 seed in the GMAC tournament, is a semifinal matchup with No. 3 seed Ashland at host site Walsh University in Canton.<\/p>\n
A win over the Eagles would likely clinch an NCAA spot, but again Conley and Co. aren\u2019t ready to rest on that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to cut down the nets,\u201d said the LEC coach, referring to winning the GMAC tournament and earning an automatic bid to the NCAA.<\/p>\n
The Storm might have the firepower to do that. With four different players averaging at least double figures in points (and a fifth just under 10 points), it\u2019s seemingly a different one each night, making opposing defenses wondering which players to guard the tightest.<\/p>\n
On this night, it was Kai Bloom, who had 17 points and seven rebounds to lead the way. Also in double-figure scoring were Brush grad Trace Bishko, who had 14 points and three 3-pointers, and Gio Moore with 10 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur style is pressing for 40 minutes and getting a lot of possessions,\u201d said Conley. \u201cPlus, our group is so unselfish.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Storm forced 21 turnovers against Wesleyan, and that helped lead to 23 fast-break points.<\/p>\n
LEC led at halftime, 40-33, but kept Wesleyan at a safe distance with a double-digit lead in the second half until the final minute to make the final a six-point margin.<\/p>\n
Caleb Mackrey scored a game-high 28 points for Kentucky Wesleyan (16-13).<\/p>\n
As for his team\u2019s NCAA hopes, D-II is a unique format in which there are eight regions across the country with the top eight teams in each region earning a tournament bid.<\/p>\n
LEC is in the Midwest Region and is currently ranked No. 6, one spot ahead of Ashland, which the Storm swept in the regular season. A win over the Eagles would certainly boost LEC\u2019s NCAA portfolio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve done enough to get in, and I think we\u2019ve got a great shot but we just want to keep winning, and that means worrying about the next (game),\u201d said Conley. \u201c(Making the NCAA tournament) would be huge for our college and our athletic department.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 22-7 overall, the Lake Erie men\u2019s basketball has put itself in good spot to secure a bid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2300,136,138,137,6608,241,726],"class_list":["post-129019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-college-sports","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-lake-erie-college","tag-latest-headlines","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}