NMMI Sports Press

LUBBOCK, Texas — The Bronco basketball team's abbreviated season ended Sunday with a 78-65 loss to Frank Phillips in the first round of the WJCAC tournament, after what coach Sean Schooley called a "mentally exhausting" season.

"I think this year was longer than any year I've been involved with," he said. "I know the coaches are tired. I'm very tired. I know we only played 16 games and to be exhausted, it's tough. These kids, it's not for lack of effort. They're a good bunch of guys and I'm looking forward to some of them coming back and improving."

The Covid-shortened season — which saw the Broncos play a mere three pre-conference games before jumping into the tough WJCAC — took its toll, with NMMI losing a number of close games, even to nationally ranked teams. And Sunday was more of the same, as poor free-throw shooting led to the loss.

"You can't win a basketball game in a playoff environment going 10-for-24 from the free-throw line," Schooley said. "You just can't. We were lucky to keep it as close as we did. We also turned it over 22 times. You cannot do that, and we did it. Some guys had some rough nights and some other people didn't pick up the slack. A couple of people did. But it was really just a flat game on our part."

Still, the Broncos kept things close and even led early. A seven-point unanswered string took the Institute from being down 12-9 to up 16-12. And most of the rest of the first half continued in that vein, with seven ties and six lead changes, and no team ahead by more than seven points.

The Plainsmen led 37-32 heading into halftime, but after a Frank Phillips player drew a technical with a dunk during the break, that lead closed to four when Khaleb Wilson-Rouse went 1-for-2 from the line before play started.

But as the game worse on, both the NMMI turnovers and lack of buckets from the charity stripe stretched the Plainsman lead.

A long 3-pointer by freshman Jordan Nelson kept the game at 54-50 with 10 minutes left in the final half, but it was downhill from there.

The leading scorers for both teams didn't manage to score well, with Furaha Cadeaux de Dieu only managing 12 points for the Broncos and Plainsman Lance-Amir Paul only getting eight.

Nelson was the shining star for NMMI, scoring 23 points, including nine from outside, to lead all scorers.

"Jordan (Nelson) really kind of stepped up and showed he can do some things and Andrew (Bennett) did a good job," the coach said. "So we've got a few things to build on, and some of these sophomores, I think they began to press a little bit too much, and it showed."

The only other Bronco in double figures was Wilson-Rouse with 10.

Playing the majority of their games on the road this season, including the first 10 straight, made it tough on the squad.

"Playing five conference road games kind of put us behind the eight ball right off the bat, and in a normal year, without a conference tournament, we would have been finished," Schooley said.

But once they got home, things turned around a bit and that, the coach said, was a plus.

"We really did, so you hate to go back and say the 'What ifs?' Maybe if we had played home and away, home and away like it's supposed to be, maybe we wouldn't have been playing in the first round. Maybe we would have gotten a bye. It's hard to say."

And for the sophomores, it's an end to a season — two, actually, when you go back to the truncated end of 2020 — they'll most likely never forget.

"I really appreciate the effort the sophomores did by hanging it together," Schooley said. "Dee (Cadeaux de Dieu) and Khaleb (Wilson-Rouse ) and Jeremiah (Barr) and John (Mapiou), those guys. They fought hard. We were just a little short-handed some times. It's awful tough when you lose so many games by under 10 points. It says that you're talented enough, you just can't quite put it all together. We never could find a way to put it together when we were in those ones that we lost by seven, eight, nine points."