DANVILLE — It has been 10 years since the Lansing Community College men’s basketball team was in the NJCAA Division II National Tournament.
And the Stars did not want to exit early.
No. 17 seed Lansing took a big lead and was able to hang on to turn away the challenge of No. 16 Arkansas State University Mid-South for 96-88 win in the second game of the tournament on Monday.
While Lansing is back for the first time since 2016, head coach Mike Ingram saw the vision of this team coming to Danville from last season.
“I started building this team to come here last year, “ Ingram said. “During last season, we played three games in one week at least three times and nobody knew what I was doing. We played Milwaukee Tech and Schoolcraft back to back in one of those stretches. We had to win three games to get here and we have to have three wins to get to the championship game and I think we are battle tested for that.”
The Stars built an early 20-point lead, but the Greyhounds started to chip away and was only down 49-39 at halftime.
“These guys have been fighting together all year,” Arkansas State University Mid-South coach Cody Hastings said. “We have had games where we have gotten down and games where we have comeback late and overcome adversity. The confidence in these guys just let them feel better about themselves and let them go out and make shots when it matters the most It did not look good in the first half, but we have a good group.”
“We push the ball and made some plays with guys off the bench and we get a little winded and we struggle with that until we get our wind back,” Ingram said. “This time, we decided was to keep fresh guys coming in . They are a good team.”
The second half saw Greyhounds guard Phillip Tillman built up his point totals to keep the team in the game. The sophomore had 40 points with six rebounds and five assists for Mid-South.
“He’s been doing that all year for us. He is a special player,” Hastings said. “When you need a bucket, you put the ball in his hands and trust him and he goes out and does his thing.”
But Lansing continued to pull away as four players reached double figures. The Stars were led by Zander Woodruff, who had 28 points.
Zander is a great player that was an All-American last year and led the country in scoring last year. He changed his game around a little bit this year to make our team better but in the last four-five games, he has averaged around 30-35 points a game. The guards struggled a bit, but they settled down and made some plays.”
Shannon Henderson had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Stars, while Ben Smith had 13 points and DeAire Lee had 12 points and 12 rebounds.
“We kept challenging Shannon to do more. I don’t think he was doing much but in the last five minutes, he was great. He had a big time tip and was able to hit tow free0throws to get us up by four points.
Hugh McFarland had 18 points and 10 rebounds, while Jaxson Yancy had 13 for the Greyhounds, who could not make the full recovery from that majoe early deficit and drop to 26-8.
“We let them get off to a big lead early and it was too much to overcome,” Hastings said. “We got between five and four points in the second half, but we couldn’t get that big shot down that would have meant the most.
“I hate the fact it ended like his but I am excited to get another opportunity on Wednesday. We are thankful to be here. Obvoiusoly, we wanted to compete on Saturday,but it is time to go to work and hopefully, we will get back next year.
For Lansing, they are 25-7 and will take on No 1 seeded Des Moines Area Community College today at 11 a.m.
“We always knew we would face them,” Ingram said. “You haven’t seen all of the guys yet. We are going to continue to use our guys off the bench to keep everyone fresh. Our conference, our region is as tough as anyone’s and we play tough every night.”