Jaguars overcome 11-point deficit to win PCAC South Crown

In front of a packed, rambunctious crowd at the Harry West Gymnasium, Southwestern men’s basketball team clawed back from an 11-point second-half deficit against San Diego City College to capture the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference championship.

After battling from behind all night, SWC ended the game on a 16-1 run with four steals and two blocks in the game’s final 5:14 to take control.

Freshman forward Jordan Cooke finished one rebound shy of a near double-double with 10 points, nine rebounds, five steals and a block. Foul trouble kept Cooke out of SWC’s 81-79 win against City on January 25, and head coach John Cosentino said having Cooke on the floor this time around made a big difference.

“When we keep Jordan (Cooke) out of foul trouble early, we are a different team,” Cosentino said. “He got in foul trouble early when we played them here (at home) the first time.”

City scored 46 points in the paint in the January meeting, but only mustered 32 points in the paint with Cooke leading the post defense.

Throughout the game Southwestern struggled offensively, shooting 38.1 percent from the field.

Cosentino pointed to the physical defensive nature of City College and the familiarity of playing each other for the third time for the shooting struggles.

“Their defense is very physical and very tough and the shots just didn’t go,” said Cosentino. “It was a big game and after already playing them twice there were no surprises.”

Cooke said the players knew they needed to step up defensively to make up for the missed shots.

“Our collective mindset was to get stops,” Cooke said. “Even if we aren’t making shots, we can control the game tempo. When you continue to get stops, it plays into their psyche and they loss confidence.”

The Knights only scored five points in the game’s final eight minutes, making up for the Jaguars shooting woes in the second half. Cosentino switched to a zone defense to protect the paint.

“We went to our drop, which is our zone because we couldn’t stay in front of them,” Cosentino said. “In the first half I think they had 12 layups, in the second half they had three or four.”

That switch proved to be a game-changing adjustment as City shot 65 percent from the field in the first half and only 39.3 percent in the second.

SWC’s defense kept the game tight enough for freshman guard Marquavian Stephens and sophomore guard Marc Combs to catch fire. The pair accounted for 14 of the final 16 points scored during the Jaguars’ the late game rally. Combs said he and Stephens fed off of each other’s energy down the stretch.

“I told Marq keep shooting and when you make one, you’ll get hot,” Combs said. “I’ll feed you, you feed me and we’ll work what the defense gives us and we fed off of each other.”

Their will to comeback showed as Stephens tied the game at 65 with a three-pointer, followed by go ahead free throws by Combs to give the Jags a lead they never relinquished.

The win marked the end of City College’s 22-game conference home win streak, as well as the end of SWC’s four-year conference championship drought.

The Jaguars kick off the regional playoffs March 1 against San Bernardino (22-6, 9-1 PCAC North) as the eight-seed in a battle for PCAC supremacy.