Kansas City, MO – The Patriots concluded their season at the NAIA Final Site Round of 16 on Thursday afternoon after falling to the #1 seeded Arizona Christian Firestorm, 86-76. Fourth-seeded Cumberlands committed a season-high 20 turnovers and trailed by 20 points midway through the second half, before rallying back and making a push in the final five minutes of play.
Anthony Johnson finished his season with 32 points, the most of any player in the game. The junior added seven rebounds, three assists, and three steals as well, and was the only Patriot to score double figures in the contest. Anthony Harris and Brady Bell added nine points each, with Harris grabbing a team-best eight boards and blocking a pair of shots, while Tanner Walton chipped in eight points. Matthew Cromer completed his Patriots career with 7 pts, 3 reb, 3 ast, and 2 stl.
Johnson scored the first nine points of the game for the Pats, as they took a 9-7 lead over the first four minutes. Threes from Walton and Bell put UC up by three, followed by two more points at the charity stripe from Johnson to make it 17-14 with 13:45 left in the half. Four straight ACU points put the Firestorm up one before DJ Jones got to the rim for two. ACU responded with nine straight points to go up by eight before Jones found Johnson for three. The next trip down the floor, Jones picked his opponents pocket, leading to a slam from Harris on the other end to cut the deficit to three.
The next seven minutes were all Arizona Christian, as they outscored UC 19-3 to go ahead by 19 with 2:38 to play. A free throw from Cave and a dunk from Johnson were the Pats only scores in the seven-minute stretch. Bell knocked down his second three of the half to try and halt the run, but the Firestorm came back two more points. Cave then added a pair of layups in the final minute and a half to make it 50-34 at the break.
ACU began the second half on an 8-2 run to stretch their lead to 22. Both teams traded baskets before a tip-in allowed the Firestorm to grow their lead to 23, their largest of the game, with 12:15 to play. An and-one from Bell gave UC some momentum before Cromer jumped the Firestorm's pass and got an easy layup in transition. Walton added a floater in the lane, followed by an and-one from Johnson to cap off a 10-0 Patriot run to cut their deficit to 13. After an ACU layup, back-to-back slams from Harris and fastbreak bucket from Johnson made it a single-digit game with 7:09 to play.
The remainder of the game saw Anthony Johnson score 14 of the final 16 points from the Pats. Each time UC would score, ACU answered right back with points of their own. Four Johnson free throws brought the score to 75-65 before Arizona Christian got out in transition for another layup. Johnson then hit back-to-back triples to bring UC within eight with less than two minutes on the clock, the closest they were to ACU since the 8:17 mark in the first half. After a pair of ACU free throws, Walton hit his second three of the game off a nice find from Cromer to make it a seven-point game with 41 seconds to play. This would be as close as the Pats could get, as five straight free throws from ACU stretched their lead back to double-digits. A late tip-in from Robertas Jonaitis gave the senior his only two points of the game and accounted for UC's final bucket of the season as the buzzer sounded with the Pats falling 86-76.
Cumberlands conclude their season 24-9 overall, after winning the MSC Regular Season and NAIA First and Second Rounds for the second year in a row.
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