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Turnovers, bad shooting costs Badgers in loss to X-Men

The numbers just didn’t add up for the Brock Badgers.

The Badgers shot an abysmal 28.8% from the field and committed 24 turnovers, which led to 35 points as they dropped a 74-54 decision to the St. Francis Xavier X-Men in university men’s pre-season basketball at the Bob Davis Gym Saturday.

Brock coach Ken Murray was forthright and blunt when assessing the effort.

“At the end of the first quarter, we were shooting just 16.7%,” he said. “I’m talking layups, wide open jumps shots.… We were awful. What else can you say? I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“We did everything we wanted to defensively. We forced them into 30 turnovers, but the worst part was, we turned the ball over 24 times and they scored 35 points off those turnovers. That’s half their points and it’s tough to win games like that.”

Brock fell behind 12-0 early before rallying to tie the game at 18-18 early in the second quarter. SFX then went on a 17-3 run over the next six minutes to build a 35-21 lead.

“Every time we’d put together a run where we’d score six or eight points, we’d make a real bad mistake and they’d come down and score,” Murray said. “It just seemed to take everything away from us.”

Jordan Johnson paced the Badgers with 13 points and Andrew Cicutinni added 12 and Clinton Springer-Williams had 10.

Christian Upshaw led the X-Men with 18.

Murray said he’s going to have to exercise patience with his young charges, particularly early in the season.

“With a young team like we’ve got, better that it happen now as opposed to when we get in conference play,” Murray said. “If it was an experienced team I’d be really discouraged, but with a young team I’ve got to bite my tongue and make sure I’m not too hard on them and hope we bounce out of it.”

Brock, 1-4, is back in action today at home against St. Mary’s at 7 p.m.