By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Form unfortunately held in Thomas More’s Great Midwest Athletic Conference’s postseason men’s basketball tournament championship bid Saturday. The lower-seeded team won, as has been the norm in the postseason for the GMAC.
Fourth-seeded Thomas More, looking for their first postseason title in its second year in the NCAA Division II conference, fell, 76-63, to seventh-seed Malone at Hillsdale College in the championship game to finish 19-11 overall.
Senior Casey George went out with another big game, scoring a team-high 18 points to finish his career with 1,202 points as TMU’s 16th all-time scorer) and 455 rebounds, 267 assists and 111 steals.
Thomas More’s shooting woes continued as the Saints hit on just 37.5 percent (21 of 56) from the field and 30 percent from the three-point line (six of 20) for the game. The inability to score the ball in the first half was worse than the game totals and had TMU shooting just 26.7 percent (eight of 30) and a horrific 12.5 percent (one of eight from three-point territory) in the first 20 minutes.
Redshirt freshman Kai Simpson added 17 points with a team-high nine rebounds while junior Mitch Rylee added 11 points and seven rebounds. The Saints return next season in their third year in the G-MAC and DII.
Leading Malone was Tre Baumgardner III who fired in seven three-pointers – more than the six of the entire TMU team — in nine attempts for 25 points. Malone’s 12 three-pointers doubled TMU’s six.
SCORING SUMMARY
Malone 27 49—76
Thomas More 18 45—63
Malone (16-15, 9-11 GMAC): Baumgardner 9-12 7-9 0-0 25, Bartley 7-13 4-8 2-2 20, Blair 6-12 0-3 4-5 16, Conard 4-7 1-2 6-9 15, Walker 0-4 0-3 0-0 0, Bruns 0-3 0-0 0-0 0, LaRocque 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, Frederick 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Smith 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Ernst 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Stefanovic 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, DeGeorge 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; TOTALS: 26-52 12-28 12-16—76.
Thomas More (19-11, 12-8 GMAC): George 7-12 1-2 3-5 18, Simpson 4-17 2-9 7-8 17, Rylee 5-11 0-0 1-3 11, Vieth 1-4 0-2 2-3 4, Johnson 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, Paris 2-5 1-3 2-2 7, Browne 2-3 2-3 0-0 6, Pouncy 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, McCune 0-2 0-1 0-0 0, Crowe 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, McClain 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; TOTALS: 21-56 6-21 15-21—63.