Victory Over Danville Area Community College

While making it perfectly clear that winning is his bottom line, Lincoln College men’s coach BJ McCullum couldn’t help but take a little pleasure in the performance of his team’s sophomore class Saturday afternoon.

Lead by a strong performance from the team’s five sophomores, the Lynx would use a big first half to take a 79-59 victory over Danville Area Community College.

“You’d like to see some leadership at this point, and I don’t care if it comes from freshmen or sophomores,” said McCullum. “But, the sophomores did play well for us today, which was nice.”

“Overall, I thought everyone played hard in the first half. In the second half, we had some mental lapses.”

The Lynx (15-4, 7-1) got off to a fast start, roaring to a 28-8 lead in the first ten minutes, capped by back to back three pointers from sophomore Jake Littrel. The Lynx took a 41-19 lead into halftime.

The first half dominance allowed the Lynx to overcome a second half that saw the Jaguars (8-15, 2-7) outscore them by two points.

“I don’t believe in playing down to someone’s competition- we didn’t play up to our potential (in the second half),” said McCullum. “We didn’t play as hard in the second half as we did in the first. They did a great job of rebounding the basketball against us, and we have to be a much better rebounding team at all times.”

“It was a pretty good defensive effort though, and we had some guys do some things on offense. I thought Sheldan Evans played really hard tonight. He put a lot of pressure on the ball, and that really helped us.”

The Lynx were lead in scoring by Littrel and sophomore Shawn Bridgewater with 12 each. Sophomores Brandon Alexander and Kyle Jacobs had 11 and 10, followed by Evans, also a sophomore, with 8. The freshman guard duo of PJ Keaton and David Pickering had 8 points each as well.

The Lynx were nearly without Littrel’s shooting touch, after the forward almost didn’t make it past the pre-game warm ups. Littrel finished the game 4-7 from beyond the arch.

“Jake dislocated his finger in pre-game, and the team doctor had to put in back in place,” said McCullum. “I think we’re going to do that to him every game now, because he shot so well today after that.”

Littrel already has the story straight for any of his children or grandchildren.

“I didn’t even get to warm up, because I had to go downstairs so they could pop it back in place,” said Littrel. “I just dislocated my finger in warm ups by hitting a basketball. It was weird.”
The win sent the nation’s No. 5 ranked team into a week that sees three home games on the schedule. The Lynx match up with rival Illinois Central College on Wednesday night, before facing the NJCAA’s No. 11 ranked team, Triton College, on Thursday night, and a re-match with Parkland College, who defeated the Lynx earlier this season, on Saturday afternoon.

According to both coach and player, there are plenty of reasons for fans to make the trip to Davidson-Sheffer Gymnasium for the contests.

“I think we play pretty exciting basketball,” said McCullum. “I think any time you go and see an athletic event, you want to see people get after it, and our players really do get after it by playing good defense and running the court.”

“Everyone should come watch us because we should be going to the National Tournament, if all goes well,” said Littrel. “If we stick together and play like we can, I think we can make it back again this year.”

“We’ve got ICC in here on Wednesday night. They’ve got a big kid from China that Bruce Weber has been to watch three times,” said McCullum. “They’ve got good size, and they have a real good shooter on the wing named Kyle Julius. Probably our biggest rivalry over the years has been with Illinois Central.”

Game time on Wednesday is 7:30 p.m.

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