By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Most any team in the country would be envious of Washburn University's 22-2 start to the 2024-2025 season.
But after suffering back-to-back road losses that snapped the Ichabods' 22-game winning streak, WU was looking for a bounce back Thursday night in Lee Arena.
And the No. 4-ranked Ichabods got just that, shooting a blistering 64 percent from the field in the second half in a 93-72 MIAA win over Central Oklahoma.
Washburn sophomore Brayden Shorter (20) led all scorers with 25 points in Thursday's 93-72 home MIAA win over Central Oklahoma. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Senior Jacob Hanna scored 22 points for Washburn in Thursday's 93-72 win over Central Oklahoma. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
"It's kind of funny how quickly expectations can change,'' Washburn coach Brett Ballard said. "And if I would have told anybody associated with our program that we were going to be 22-2 coming into this game everybody would have been like, 'Holy cow, you're having the most amazing year.'
"But with what happened last week, sometimes outside of our bubble people thought a certain thing. I think our guys were disappointed by it, but we came back and had three really good practices this week. I was really proud of the intent and I thought we learned from that and it doesn't mean you're going to come out and play well, but I did think we had a great intensity and a want to and a compete to us tonight.''
Sophomore Brayden Shorter, who led Washburn with a game-high 25 points, agreed that Thursday was a good bounce-back performance.
"We emphasized that all week in practice,'' Shorter said. "I feel like our practices have been a lot more turned up, with a lot more energy in practices. Not that we weren't having good practices, we were just on a 22-game win streak and sometimes you just let off the gas a little bit and I think we did a good job coming out tonight of getting back to what we do.''
Washburn (23-2 overall, 14-2 MIAA) trailed for only 26 seconds in the game as UCO (14-11, 8-8) jumped out to a 5-2 lead after the Ichabods scored the first two points of the game.
But Washburn then scored the next eight and 10 of the next 12 points going up 12-7 at the first media time out
Washburn pushed its lead to nine at 20-11 with 11:55 left in the first half and answered a UCO run with an Andrew Orr layup and a 3-pointer to push the lead to 26-15 with 9:25 to go in the half.
The Bronchos cut the lead to four at 33-29 with 2:43 to go before the break, but Washburn closed the frame on a 9-3 run to take a 43-32 lead into the locker room.
Coming out of the break UCO scored the first five points to trim the Washburn advantage to five at 42-37, but a timeout by the Ichabods jump started a 14-6 run over the next 2:51, capped by back-to-back 3-pointers by Shorter as the Ichabods pushed their lead to 13 (58-45) with 14:49 to play.
Another jumper by Shorter moved the lead to 12 after a 3-pointer by the Bronchos and Washburn put the game away with a 16-6 run, stretching the Ichabod lead to 19 before WU went up by as many as 21 points with 5:52 remaining.
Shorter scored 16 in the second half on 5 of 6 shooting from the field, including 4 of 5 3-pointers.
Senior Andrew Orr moved into 14th place on Washburn's career scoring list with 13 points in Thursday's 93-72 win over Central Oklahoma. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Senior Jacob Hanna finished with 22 points, hitting 14 of 16 free throws, while Orr had 13 points and Brady Christiansen 11. Orr moved into 14th on WU's career scoring chart with his 13 points.
Jack Bachelor scored seven points with eight assists and three steals.
UCO was led by Israel Hart with scored 23 points, including 18 in the first half.
After shooting 43 percent in the opening half, the Ichabods heated up to 64 percent in the second half on 16 of 25 shooting, including 5 of 10 from deep.
For the game the Ichabods finished at 53 percent overall (29 of 55) and went 26 of 32 from the free throw line for an 81 percent clip.
Washburn finished 20 of 29 from the field on two-point shots (69 percent) for the game. Washburn held the Bronchos to 40 percent shooting for the game and 7 of 24 from deep.
The Ichabods dominated the glass, out-rebounding the Bronchos 44-25 and turning 11 offensive rebounds into 10 second-chance points.
The Ichabods will wrap up its regular-season home slate on Saturday, hosting Rogers State at 3 p.m. on Saturday as seniors Orr, Hanna, Michael Keegan and Jake Schadegg will be honored in a pre-game ceremony.
