Lakers Derailed By Cougars In CCAC Showdown

CHICAGO – Roosevelt's first attempt at winning the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference came up short Wednesday night on the South Side at St. Xavier.

The Lakers (19-8, 16-3 CCAC) never led for just the second time this season in falling 75-65 to the Cougars and dropping into a three-way tie atop the league. Due to tiebreakers, the Lakers can no longer be the No. 1 seed in the CCAC Tournament, but still can clinch a share of the title with a win Saturday against Governors State.

St. Xavier was able to bother Roosevelt with its length on the perimeter, deflecting many of the early entry passes the Lakers tried to set up their offense. All 11 of the Lakers' turnovers came in the first half and led to 12 points for the Cougars as they pulled away for an 11-point lead at the break. Much of the reason the deficit wasn't larger was the inside presence of Shane Stevensen, who scored 12 points on 6 of 8 shooting. His teammates made just 6 of 17 from the floor and 3 of 10 from behind the arc as Roosevelt struggled to run its offense.

Roosevelt also ran into some early foul trouble with four of its five starters being whistled for multiple fouls in the first half. That led to a large discrepancy in free-throw shooting with the Cougars shooting 33 free throws in Wednesday's game and the Lakers shooting just seven. However, the foul shots were trivial compared to Roosevelt's struggles to defend near the rim in the first half. The Cougars made 15 of 24 in the opening 20 minutes, including 14 of 20 shots inside the arc, oftentimes finding themselves open near the hoop for easy baskets.

The Lakers did their part in slowing down the Cougars in the second half with a pair of blocks from Ayo Ajiboye and holding St. Xavier to just 19 field goal attempts in the final 20 minutes. Yet Roosevelt could never string together enough stops to actually claw its way back into the game. Maurice Commander did his part with 18 second-half points to finish with 23 on the game, going on several runs by himself to close the deficit.

After St. Xavier took its biggest lead of the game at 50-35, the Lakers found their first spark from Commander. The graduate transfer came up with a steal and hit a 3-pointer in transition then 20 seconds later, buried another 3-pointer after Matt Myers secured a steal off the Lakers' press. Yet that just started a prolonged period of the teams trading baskets and the Lakers couldn't capitalize on the momentum.

There were a pair of key turning points in the final five minutes that boosted St. Xavier to the victory. The first came after a Commander 3-pointer with five minutes remaining that cut the Cougars' lead to seven when referees whistled Commander for a touch foul near the halfcourt line. St. Xavier made the two free throws then added two more 20 seconds later to boost the lead to 11. Commander then pulled out another trick by completing a four-point play, and this time the Lakers played excellent defense only for the Cougars to beat the shot clock with an off-balanced 30-foot 3-pointer with 3:11 remaining.

Stevensen finished with 21 points for the Lakers to help Commander in the scoring column while Matt Myers and Julio Montes II both chipped in eight points. The bigger issue for the Lakers, however, was Stevensen leading Roosevelt with just four rebounds as the Lakers lost the battle on the glass 36-18, which helped the Cougars outscore the Lakers 32-18 in the paint.

The Lakers will try to secure their first conference championship in program history Saturday at 3 p.m. when they host Governors State at the Goodman Center. A win over the Jaguars would clinch a share of the CCAC title and the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament.