West Michigan Roundup, Thursday 1/20/22

New Buffalo 82, St. Joe Lake MI Cath. 44

New Buffalo kept the perfect season alive improving to (8-0) with a blowout win over St. Joe Lake MI Catholic. The Bison received balanced scoring from Kaden Parmley with 17 points, Anthony Lijewski with 16 points, Jeremiah Mitchell with 16 points, and Markvell Shaw with 15 points. LMC was led by Matt Lage with 16 points. New Buffalo has a massive game on Friday against unbeaten Eau Claire. I predict that the winner will end up ranked in next weeks D4 AP Poll.

Howardsville Christian 56, Covert 44

Howardsville Christian picked up a much-needed win to improve to (4-3). Howardsville Christian has struggled this season after losing most of their production to graduation including high-scoring star Jason Jergens who is a freshman on the Concordia (MI) basketball team. Covert drops to (1-8) with their lone win coming by one point over Lawrence in their season opener.

Reading 53, Union City 35

Union City dropped their third straight game after starting the season at (5-1). They will look to bounce back on Tuesday at home against Homer.

Homer 50, Bronson 43

Bronson falls to (4-6) after dropping both road games this week at Olivet and now Homer. It has been somewhat of a disappointing season for Bronson as I thought they would take another step forward after their (10-9) season last year. Bronson will return to action on Tuesday at home against Reading.

Game I Attended: K-Central 71, BC Central 56

Two teams hitting their stride in the SMAC-West matched up at Zuidema Gymnasium on Thursday night. BC Central entered the game (6-3) winning four of the their past five games while K-Central entered (6-4) winners of their past four games. Both teams struggled out of the gate as we had a 8-8 stalemate after the first quarter. K-Central opened the second quarter on a 10-0 run holding BC Central scoreless up until the 3:56 mark. BC Central came storming back led by junior Ke’Marion Tucker to close the half on an 11-6 run. K-Central led by five points, 24-19 at halftime. Once again K-Central opened the quarter strong on an 8-0 run to expand the lead to 13 points. The Maroon Giants did most of their damage at the free throw line scoring 9 of their 21 points in the quarter at the line. By the end of the third quarter the lead had expanded to 16 points with K-Central leading 45-29. The Maroon Giants were able to keep Ke’Marion Tucker in check in the third quarter holding him to 6 points on 2-5 FG in comparison to his 16 first half points on 6-7 FG. The closest BC Central ever came the rest of the game was 10 points as K-Central came away with a 71-56 victory to win their fifth straight game. It was Thomas Dillard IV leading the way once again with 20 points, while Scott Hughes added 16 points. Martell Underwood played a great game around the rim for the Maroon Giants scoring 11 points while JP Spybrook provided a spark off the bench with 8 points. One of the stories of the night was Ke’Marion Tucker scoring 28 points for BC Central in the loss. Tucker made 3 three-pointers and was effective both inside and outside. He will be an interesting player to keep an eye on for the rest of this season and next season. K-Central will return to the court on Tuesday at home against Mattawan while BC Central will host Harper Creek in a non-league game.