MANKATO — Winning streaks, by no accounts, are easy to maintain.
Picture winning streaks like climbing a steep mountain. Every successful step gets you closer to the top, but make one wrong move and your are back at the bottom.
Minnesota State men’s basketball is climbing fairly high right now. It entered Thursday’s NSIC clash against Sioux Falls riding an eight-game winning streak.
But before the Mavericks began their climb, they kept getting stuck at the bottom after dropping seven of nine games. And one of those losses came on the road to the Cougars in December.
This time around MSU didn’t fall back to bottom. Instead, it kept moving forward with a thrilling 98-95 win that left some fans chewing through every inch of their fingernails.
“That loss left a nasty taste in our mouth for a while,” junior point guard Arhman Lewis said. “ I’m just glad that, as a whole squad, we remember how it felt.”
Lewis finished the game with a career-best 14 assists and finished with a mere nine points. But of those nine, three came at the biggest point of the night.
With under a minute to go and the game even at 91-91, Lewis had the ball in his hands. He was frustrated from the turnover he committed on the previous possession, and both of his 3-point attempts up to that point were no good.
But hey, third time’s a charm, right?
In this case, it was. Lewis hit from the top of the arc with 42.8 seconds remaining. The Mavericks led 94-91 and didn’t trail for the rest of the game.
“I was like ‘Hey, one of these have to go in,’” Lewis said. “Fortunately, it was the big-time dagger. The basketball gods had me on their side.”
Early on this game appeared to be trending toward a lopsided MSU win. Freshman Phoenix Childs led the charge with eight points to take a 23-7 lead 6:11 into the first half when Caden Kirkman connected for his lone made shot from beyond the arc. But by the time halftime rolled around, the Cougars led 52-50, rallying to outscore the home team 45-27 after Kirkman’s triple.
And midway through the second half USF appeared to keep a firm grip on momentum with a 6-0 burst within 60 seconds for a 79-73 lead with 8:54 to go, its biggest lead of the game up to that point.
But as fate would have it, this game was not defined by USF freshman and Mankato East legend Brogan Madson clamping down MSU junior Arhman Lewis. It wasn’t defined by the Cougars’ mini surge.
It came off the red-hot shooting from another Mavericks freshman in Colton Benson. The New Ulm product connected from long, long range to cut the deficit to 82-79 with 6:14 to go. His triple with 3:21 to go gave MSU an 87-86 lead that sent the home crowd into a frenzy.
Benson finished the night with 27 points. He made 8 of 11 shots from the field and went an impressively crucial 5 of 6 from downtown.
Six weeks ago a shooting night like Benson’s wasn’t likely. On Thursday it proved to be a crucial component in another massive step forward up the mountain.
“They’re hitting shots and I’m finding them,” Lewis said. “They trust me to get them the ball. They don’t have to work too hard. They allow me to just find them, and they knock it down.”
Oh, Madson also finished with 27 points in his return to Mankato.
The crafty left went 7 of 13 from the floor, 3 of 5 from 3-point range. He also got to the free throw line often, making 10 of 13 attempts. He was also the only Sioux Falls player on Thursday to receive cheers during starting lineups.
The Mavericks now look to take another step forward on the mountain at 3 p.m. Saturday as Southwest Minnesota State rolls into Taylor Center. MSU dropped the first meeting of the season 78-66 in Marshall as part of the stretch where it kept falling off course.
Saturday proves to be another opportunity for redemption.
“We know that in the month of February we’re playing all these teams that beat us already,” MSU head coach Matt Margenthaler said. “It’s a redemption tour for us right now.”