Saint Thomas, VI – In addition to this road trip being a once-in-a-lifetime experience for our men's basketball student-athletes at Grace Christian University and a great break from the winter weather, they welcomed two very tough tasks on the basketball court over the weekend against the same opponent - the University of the Virgin Islands. The Tigers would play right with the Bucs, who are one of the top teams in the NAIA, but in the end they could not find their shooting stroke enough to end up victorious.
On Friday night the Tigers fell 86-67 and on Saturday they fell 78-69 after leading for a majority of the game. Junior Brandon Winchester-Jones led the Tigers with 26 points on Saturday. Junior Austin Jackson had 19 points over the weekend, putting his career total at 997.
Head Coach Gary Bailey was happy with the team's effort despite the two losses.
"Even though we had two losses this weekend to the same team I felt like we played two outstanding games. They were an excellent team. We played some of our best defense of the year and our offense really clicked. We just had a couple times each night where we didn't make shots. I think it was a really good weekend heading into our match up with Great Lakes and getting ready for regionals. It was also really nice for the guys to break up winter a little bit."
The NCCAA #1 Tigers are now 17-10 headed into Wednesday's showdown in Lansing, MI against the NCCAA #3 #3 Crusaders of Great Lake Christian College at 7:00 pm.
