An all-new Central College men's basketball lineup showed signs of promise but also betrayed its inexperience in an 84-73 season-opening setback against Monmouth College (Ill.) Monday.
The Dutch rallied from a 10-point second-half deficit, tied the score at 61-61 with 6:42 left, then stalled down the stretch. Sparked by back-to-back 3-point buckets, Monmouth used a 14-2 burst to secure the win.
The difference in the game was beyond the arc. Monmouth shot 56.3 percent from 3-point range (9-16) while Central could must only 19.0 percent (4-21).
"We were up and down all game," coach Mike Boschee said of his squad, which featured five new starters following last year's Iowa Conference championship season. "We had a decent start, then we were down for a while. We came back and tied it in the second half, but in the last four minutes, we just didn't play Central basketball. We weren't making the extra pass on offense and obviously we didn't play good defense. We need to learn to take a little more pride in the defensive end."
Boschee also pointed to some other telltale numbers.
"When you only have six assists along with 24 turnovers, it's hard to win any game," he said. "We just weren't disciplined enough in a lot of areas, both offensively and defensively."
Guard Demarco Turner had a career-high 19 points in his debut as a starter. Guard Brock Caves followed with 14 points and guard Adrian Cave had 14.
Forward James Chapline pulled down a game-high 13 rebounds as the undersized Dutch outrebounded Monmouth, 43-37. Monmouth shot 40.0 percent from the floor to Central's 38.6 percent.
Central heads to Galesburg, Ill. for its season road opener with Knox College (Ill.) Thursday at 7:30 p.m.