Reinders, Bearcats overpower Baptist

The phrase 'dominant big man' has rarely been used to describe Northwest Missouri State senior Jake Reinders.
Serviceable is more like it.

But on Saturday, Reinders resembled one of the MIAA's top low-post players, scoring a career-high 28 points and pulling down 12 rebounds in Northwest Missouri State's 78-55 win over Southwest Baptist at Bearcat Arena.

Reinders made 12-15 shots, mostly from in close, and recorded the first double-double of his career while fouling out both of SBU's post players.

"Anybody who can stick through for three years what he's stuck through deserves what he's getting right now," said Northwest Missouri State head coach Ben McCollum.

A reserve for each of his first three seasons, Reinders has now led the Bearcats in scoring three times this year and ranks second on the team behind DeShaun Cooper on a per game basis.

He set his previous career of 20 points against Lincoln on Dec. 30 and scored 16 in a win over William Jewell on Nov. 19.

"It's not really what I've done, it's what my teammates have done," said Reinders. "My teammates have found me a lot better. They're finding me when I'm open and they're making great passes."

Reinders was at his best in the second half, scoring 18 points on 8-10 shooting, and so were the Bearcats.

Down 36-31 after a lackluster first half, Northwest outscored SBU 47-19 in the second half.

The Bearcats shot close to 58 percent and held SBU to 25 percent shooting.

"We're just a second half team," said Cooper. "It just seems like we gotta come out and get a feel for the game. We need to get out of that mentality, but once we get that feel, we turn it on. Then it's on."

Once Northwest gained its first six point lead on a three by Alex Sullivan at the 10 minute mark, SBU could never get any closer and eventually caved in.

The Purple Bearcats aren’t the first team that’s happened to.

"When you get stops consistently and when your defense is good, teams kind of start to tighten up on their shots because they don't want you to break them," said McCollum. "If you get consecutive stops with a couple scores, that's how you break teams and then on top of it, if it gets down to the last five, we're able to get the ball to a play-maker. He's able to make things happen for everyone."

For Northwest, that was Cooper and Reinders.

Cooper rose up for a top-of-the-key three to make it 66-53 and Reinders converted a three-point play for a 69-54 lead.

The Bearcats closed the game on an 18-2 run punctuated by Justin Clark's two-handed slam in the final minute.

"We were kind of mad about the last game at Central," said Reinders. "We didn't play near as good as we could. I think we all just got more mentally focused and came out and got the job done."

The win kept the Bearcats (13-2, 7-2) a game ahead of Missouri Southern, Central Missouri and Washburn for first place in the MIAA. Southwest Baptist (10-8, 3-6) had its four-game winning streak snapped. Northwest is now 8-0 at home this season.

"It's just about protecting your homecourt especially a team that was hot like them and had some really big wins beating Washburn and then beating Fort Hays and Emporia," said McCollum. "It's always good to do that and try to gain some separation as far as wins go."

Northwest finished shooting 52.9 percent compared to 37.5 percent for SBU.

The Purple Bearcats, who lead the MIAA by a wide margin in three-pointers made and taken, were only 8-27 from three and 2-13 in the second half.

"We didn't do anything special," said McCollum. "In year's past, I've just schemed and game-planned for them, scared to death they're going to hit three's and then what happens is they hit three's. We just played our regular defense and it seemed to work."

Cooper, who returned from a hip injury that kept him out the final 33 minutes at Central, played 34 minutes and finished with 15 points. He had 11 of those in the second half. 

Dillon Starzl added 10 points on 3-4 shooting. Northwest's two posts were a combined 15-19 from the field.
"Those two big kids down there just outworked us," said SBU head coach Jeff Guiot. "They wanted it more and it showed at the end of the game. They just wore us down."

Robson Menmon scored 17 points to lead SBU. Kyle Sloan had 13 points and hit four three's, but all of that came in the first half.

SBU led by as many as seven in the first half and a buzzer-beating three by Sloan set up by a Reinders turnover gave the Purple Bearcats a five-point halftime lead.

The Purple Bearcats scored just two points in the first six minutes of the second half, allowing Northwest to go in front 40-38.

Northwest took the lead for good with 13:27 left on a three-point play by Bryston Williams.