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Kalsow Drains 28
in Win for Pointers
By Jerry Rhoden
Central Wisconsin Sunday
Original Article
Box Score
STEVENS POINT - As Kendall College of Evanston, Ill., enters the final
season of its 7-year-old men's basketball program, the Vikings made sure
pride didn't leave early.
Overcoming an early Viking charge that silenced its home crowd, the
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point got 28 points from Jason Kalsow and
double-digit scoring from four of five starters to hold on for an 80-66 win
and an eighth straight Pointer Tipoff Championship trophy Saturday.
Kalsow also netted honors as the tournament's leading rebounder with 19 and
took home the Most Valuable Player award as teammate Nick Bennett joined him
on the all-tournament team.
"My teammates found me a lot," said Kalsow, a 6-foot-7 junior forward from
Huntley, Ill. "Our goal was to look inside tonight. I tried to be powerful
and tried to get them in foul trouble because we knew they weren't deep on
the bench."
But the Vikings (3-5) fielded an athletic lineup of big men that nearly
mirrored that of the Pointers (2-0). Tedrick Rance led Kendall with 19
points, center Chris Smith added 17, and Serbian national Dejean Stosic
added 12.
The Pointers' Bennett added a team-high seven assists to his 15 points,
point guard Neal Krajnik added 11, and center Eric Maus scored 10.
The decisive statistic was the teams' assist-to-turnover ratio. Kendall
turned it over 12 times to seven assists, and UWSP had just nine turnovers
to 19 assists.
"In the first half, defensively, we did a poor job," Kendall head coach John
Bongiorno said. "But they hit a lot of shots with a hand in their face."
The game was clean but very physical, as bodies crashed to the floor
regularly following loose balls and fouls.
But unlike some instances last season, the Pointers held their ground.
"That was the one thing we needed to do," Pointers head coach Jack Bennett
said. "That's the biggest difference from last year.
"We have some guys who enjoy that kind of action. If there's a scrum, we
stand as good a chance as anybody."
The Pointers isolated Kalsow on Smith periodically in the first half, and
Kalsow went into the locker room with 15 points.
He lent four first-half assists as his teammates shot a blistering 64.5
percent from the floor in the opening period and 57.9 for the game. Kendall
hit better than 50 percent for the game, but UWSP dominated on the boards,
pulling down 34 rebounds to Kendall's 18.
On the Pointers' defensive end, they grabbed 22 of Kendall's misses, while
the Vikings got just four offensive rebounds.
All this in a lame-duck season for Kendall, which announced on Oct. 1 it
will terminate its program, just a week after the fall semester began.
"We've been trying to sell that this is our last season together," said
Bongiorno, who saw three incoming players immediately sit out the season in
order to preserve eligibility pending an offseason transfer.
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