Men’s basketball picks up momentum heading into conference tournament

Mens basketball picks up momentum heading into conference tournament

by Krista Schuur

Last week was a stellar week for the Storm men. Feb. 5 , 8 and 9 all ended nicely with wins over Upper Iowa, Coe and Cornell.

The wins bumped head coach Bruce Wilson up to 251 career wins during his 17-year career at Simpson.

The Storm mentor is 251-184 (a .576 winning percentage) during his tenure.

With the ending of this three game home stretch, the men will now look for two more regular season wins in Dubuque against Dubuque University and Loras College this weekend.

The Storm men have been playing favorably recently with a wide array of people contributing to their scoring. Against Upper Iowa, sophomore Matt Brown added 20 points to the teams final 80.

“We have been playing great as a team these last few games. Our major focus is to play good defense and concentrate on finishing the regular season out on a good note,” Brown said.

Along with Brown’s 20 points in this game, junior Matt McCulla had 11, and sophomore Josh Richter contributed 10.

In the following two games played against Coe and Cornell, junior Jesse Harris led the Storm both games with 25 points with Coe, and 27 points with Cornell.

Against Cornell, Harris hit a career high five three-point baskets and tied the school record for highest three-point shooting percentage in a game at 83 percent (5-6). The record was set on two previous occassions by Marty Richter on Feb. 5, 1999 and by Storm assistant coach Bryan Martin on Jan. 6, 1998.

After the upcoming last regular season games in Dubuque, the Storm will move on to the conference tournament, where their fate of the NCAA tournament will be decided. The top four seeded teams host the first round of the conference tournament.

With the Storm currently in third place behind Buena Vista and Wartburg, the men should be guaranteed a home game for the first round. This of course requires them to win their last two games.

“We just need to push the ball up the floor and continue playing with the confidence and positive attitudes we have all maintained for the past 4 games,” said Richter.