Kings of the comeback: UMHB men’s basketball erases 17-point deficit, knocks off No. 25 Whitworth

Photo by Luke Zayas/True To The Cru

SPOKANE, Wash. — “How are we going to respond?”

That was the phrase of the day, so to speak, for the UMHB men’s basketball team heading into Saturday evening’s road duel at 25th-ranked Whitworth, head coach Sam Patterson said afterwards. 

How would they respond on the heels of a confidence-building road win two days earlier at Whitman? How would they respond when Whitworth inevitably went on a momentum-shifting scoring run? How would they respond when they found success of their own?

They got their answers loud and clear in a tale of two halves. When Whitworth held a 17-point lead with 18:59 left, the Crusaders answered with a 26-7 run to take the lead. When the Pirates pulled back within three in the game’s final minute, Patterson’s team came up with the defensive stop it needed. And when the final buzzer sounded, the crowd of 540 inside Whitworth Fieldhouse didn’t have to do more than turn and glance at the scoreboard on the end wall to see how UMHB had followed up its first road victory of the season two nights prior. 

The final score: UMHB, 92. Whitworth, 90. 

The Cru secured its first Top 25 win with Patterson as head coach while handing Whitworth its first loss on the heels of a 4-0 start. And they did so behind yet another exceptional second half, outscoring the Pirates, 60-45, over the final 20 minutes. 

“In my mind, you build that mental toughness through experience,” Patterson said after his team won for the fourth time in its last five games. “The reason I think these guys are mentally tough and confident in the second half is because we’ve experienced several really good second halves.”

Amongst those previous strong halves was Thursday night’s 90-75 win over Whitman, in which UMHB erased a 41-37 halftime deficit and outscored the Blues by 19 in the second half. They faced a halftime deficit yet again on Saturday in their second—and final—game in the Pacific Northwest, the only difference being this one was nine points larger. 

Whitworth led for the entirety of the first half, and after UMHB clawed back within four as the clock ticked below three minutes, the Pirates closed on an 11-2 run. Whitworth went 3-for-3 from beyond the 3-point arc in that stretch, pushing its halftime lead to 45-32. 

It set the stage for a major pendulum swing in the first 10 minutes of the second half. Whitworth scored six of the first eight points coming out of the break, going up 51-34, but it only made the Crusaders’ comeback more impressive. 

Over the next five minutes, UMHB put together the aforementioned 26-7 run, making nine straight shots, six of which came from 3-point range. The context in that stat? The Cru went a dismal 1-for-18 from beyond the arc in the first 20 minutes, but in the first seven minutes of the second, exceeded that total by five. They led 62-58 at the 13:16 mark, having flipped the atmosphere inside Whitworth’s home gym. 

“It wasn’t that we weren’t executing or that we weren’t playing hard,” Patterson said, mentioning the challenges of the first half and the exceptional response in the second. “We were just missing shots. I didn’t want to simplify it that much, but that’s how I felt. I wasn’t upset by the shots we were taking—I thought they were good shots—but this team we have is a much better shooting team than 1-for-18. 

“My message at halftime was, ‘We’re going to continue to take the shots we’re taking. We’re due to make them.’ Our guys bought into it. And they bought into the fact that we’re a good second-half team.”

While The Cru shot just 30.8% from the field in the opening 20 minutes, they closed at a 54.3% clip in the second half. That included connecting on eight of their 14 3-point attempts, a dynamic that played no small role in UMHB’s second-highest scoring half of the season. 

“In the second half, I mentioned to our guys, we’re not grading the possession based on if we score or don’t score,” Patterson recalled. “We’ve had some great possessions where we just didn’t make the shot. And we’ve had some possessions where we made the shot at the end but it wasn’t a great possession. We were just trying to win every possession and play basketball the way we’re capable of.” 

After claiming their first lead of the contest, the visitors from Belton found themselves back in a tied game before Cam Stinson sparked a string of nine unanswered points with a short jumper. The UMHB lead widened to 12 points three different times in the final six minutes, a stark contrast to the hole the Crusaders found themselves in with 18:59 left. 

The resilience seen in the comeback also showed up then, as The Cru fought to protect its lead down the stretch. The Pirates, with the home crowd behind them, refused to go away quietly, and for as quick as UMHB had flipped the game’s outlook, they knew Whitworth was capable of doing the same. 

With 7:07 left, Stephen Behil pulled the hosts within five, 75-70. But Hudson Johnson, who finished with a team-high 25 points, countered 20 seconds later, securing his third 20-point game of the season with a driving layup. When Behil scored again with 3:28 to go, trimming the deficit to eight, Johnson dished an assist to Connor Zamiara, who lofted a shot above a Whitworth defender, extending the gap to double-digits once again. 

“I thought we had some great possessions offensively, where we responded to a 4-0 run that they had,” Patterson said. “The energy that is contagious when we’re all connected is something you can never really count out. We felt it. 

“You really can’t explain it when you’re in the moment, but the rim gets bigger. With the encouragement and confidence you feel from your teammates, one turns into two, turns into four, and before you know it, it’s a one-point game. Then we’re breaking it away and trying to go possession-by-possession.” 

Whitworth made one final push in the last two minutes, as Ben Nyquist hit four straight free throws and Ty Edwards connected on a right-handed floater just inside the paint. The 6-1 run brought the Pirates back within three, the closest they had gotten to the lead at any point in the last 10 minutes. 

Nyquist’s two free throws came with 1:16 left, but the Pirates didn’t retake possession until 22 seconds remained. The Cru may have missed its next four straight shots, but made good use of the next trip down the floor otherwise, as they held the ball for 56 straight seconds thanks to an offensive rebound from Elijah Lawrence and out-of-bounds call on Whitworth. They twice took the shot clock under four seconds in that stretch, eating up valuable time, even as it remained a one-possession game. 

Whitworth still got it back with ample time, needing only a 3-pointer for the tie. But that attempt from beyond the arc never came. The Pirates searched for separation on the perimeter with no avail, unable to put up a shot with UMHB defenders bearing down. 

Nyquist then drove inside, looking to cut the deficit to one, but his layup fell short off the front of the rim, and Lawrence pulled down the game-sealing rebound. The graduate student knocked down both free throws on the other end, putting it out of reach, as he capped a 21-point performance of his own. 

Lawrence led the charge in the second half with 13 points in that span, a key catalyst for the comeback and a valuable contributor to the poise seen as UMHB played with the lead. The Houston native added six rebounds and four assists on a day in which he shot 7-of-15 from the field. 

Grant Jessen proved equally key in the first half, keeping The Cru in it, even as Whitworth opened on a 10-3 run and led by as many as 12 early. The junior had nine of UMHB’s 19 points between the 14:00 and 3:24 marks, and finished the day with his first double-double as a Crusader—13 points and 10 rebounds. 

“Grant’s energy makes us a completely different team,” Patterson noted. “He can affect the game without scoring with his effort plays, his offensive rebounding, his blocked shots; he’s just active. That’s what he brings.”

Jessen grabbed a team-high six offensive rebounds on a day in which UMHB controlled the glass, pulling down 22 offensive boards to Whitworth’s nine. Those second-chance opportunities added up, turning into 17 points. Donta Coady joined Jessen in the double-digit rebound club on Saturday night with 11 of his own, a team-high, and four on the offensive end. 

The page now turns to another Top 25 duel for The Cru, who will travel to San Antonio on Tuesday night for a rematch with 15th-ranked Trinity. The Tigers won in Belton in UMHB’s season opener, 82-74, but this is a different Crusader team now four weeks later. They are 4-1 in their last five and playing with tremendous maturity and confidence, a dangerous combination for any opponent currently standing in their way. 

“We’ve talked about it a lot, this group is older, mature, they’ve been through a lot, and they do not make excuses,” Patterson said. “A younger team, a less mature team, might look at the long road trips, flight delays, the one-day prep for Trinity coming home, and see it is an excuse. But for this team, that’s all player leadership. They don’t allow anybody to utter an excuse without it being called out. You see that trend in teams that have great seasons, and it goes back to that leadership from the upperclassmen.”