Friday, Aug. 19, 2011
SYDNEY--The Drake men's basketball team ran into the toughest opponent on its 10-day foreign tour in the Sydney Kings, who prevailed over the Bulldogs 95-62 Friday night at the Northern Beaches Indoor Sports Centre in suburban Sydney, Australia.
It was the fourth and final exhibition game of the Drake Bulldogs' tour of New Zealand and Australia.
Sophomore Rayvonte Rice (Champaign, Ill./Centennial) led Drake with 26 points and tied for the team lead with six rebounds. Junior Ben Simons (Cadillac, Mich.) added 17 points.
The road-weary Bulldogs played the Kings close through the first 20 minutes, trailing 47-43 at halftime, but could not contend in the second half with the size and experience of the Kings, members of Australia's professional National Basketball League.
Last year's runner-up in the NBL's Most Valuable Player voting, center Julian Khazzouh, was difficult to contain for a Drake team missing both of its centers because of injury. The 6-11 post player finished with 20 points and a game-high 12 rebounds.
"We hung in there in the first half," said head coach Mark Phelps. "I thought their zone really hurt us. We didn't have a great zone attack against their 2-3 zone, and they hit a lot shots and we didn't. It ended up being a little out of hand at the end."
The Bulldogs led 23-17 after one quarter, but the Kings used a 12-4 run to take a 29-27 lead. Aaron Hawley (Rogers, Ark.) broke the drought with a three-pointer, followed by six more Kings points as Sydney built a 36-30 lead. Drake fought back to narrow the gap to 40-39 after a pair of Rice free throws, and went to the half trailing 47-43.
Sydney opened the second half with five straight points to extend its lead to 52-43, its largest of the night to that point, and never looked back.
"We're not in the normal routine we would be in if we were playing games (during the season)," Phelps added. "We didn't have a shoot-around the day of the game and haven't had practices since we've been over here, so there are a lot of things that are different, and all those things probably contributed to it."
"But, overall it's been an unbelievable experience to have played these four games and to have been together. The team-building aspect of what this trip has allowed us to do has been off the charts. It's been a great experience."
Rounding out the scoring for the Bulldogs were Hawley and Jeremy Jeffers (Wilson, N.C./Greenfield) with 5 apiece, Karl Madison (Springfield, Ill./Lanphier) with 3 and Kurt Alexander (Toronto, Ontario/Pine Ridge), David Smith (Chicago, Ill./Lake Forest Academy) and Judd Welfringer (Waukee, Iowa) each with 2. Smith shared the team lead in rebounds with 6.
Drake's starting lineup included Rice, Madison, Jeffers, Simons and Cory Parker (Aspen, Colo.). Not suiting up were Jordan Clarke, Reece Uhlenhopp, Seth VanDeest and Frank Wiseler.
The Bulldogs are scheduled to return to Des Moines Saturday evening after the 10-day tour that took the team to Auckland, New Zealand, and Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. Drake was edged in two close games to begin the trip-69-67 by the New Zealand Breakers and 84-78 by the Kilsyth Cobras-before winning game three by a 59-57 margin over the Frankston Blues.
