Kings fall to the hands of the Wolves, offense has an off night

Grande Prairie, February 11, 2023 – After defeating the NAIT Ooks in their own gym for just the third time, the Red Deer Polytechnic Kings fall to the hands of the Northwestern Polytechnic Wolves.

It was a tough half for the Kings as they trailed the Wolves by seven. But that was not the only thing that was shocking as their offense was led by guard Eduardo Crespo (Academic Upgrading) with just nine points in the first half. Lately, Crespo has been consistently their leading scorer but was having an off night with the rest of his teammates in the first half.

He can't take all the weight on his shoulders as his team was shooting just 33.3 per cent from the field which Head Coach Darren Graham wants around the 40-45 per cent mark. With their size in all five positions, they have been a rebound force specifically on offense coming into this game but were out-rebounded with just two offensive rebounds compared to the Wolves 16 rebounds on defense.

Like their field-goal percentage, the Kings had a 33.3 percent 3-point percentage which is definitely below their average as well. Their offense needed a boost in the second half if they wanted any chance to come home with a victory.

But that was not the case. In this highly defensive game, the Kings would manage just to score 28 points in the second half. They did not even win any of the quarters. They simply were outplayed and good on the Wolves for finding ways to stop the top scorers from the Kings. Crespo had just three points in the second half and still led his team in the points category. Guards Josh Jean (Open Studies) and Cole Wickers (Bachelor of Education) were the only other players from Red Deer that had double digits in points. Wickers was named the player of the game for the Kings for his long-range shooting as he scored nine of his 11 points from the three-pointer. He also had four rebounds in the loss.

At the end of the game, the Kings fell 74-58. Their field goal and 3-point percentage both dropped below what it was in the first half, and they turned over the ball 16 times throughout the game.

RDP will just have one more game on their schedule which is next week Friday at 8 pm when they take on the Concordia University Thunder as they look to secure home-court advantage in the play-in game.