College basketball: Helms rips Wranglers after 21-point victory

The eighth-ranked Odessa College Wranglers moved a step closer to the Western Junior College Athletic Conference men’s basketball title Monday.

It just wasn’t the kind of step OC coach Dennis Helms was seeking.

Despite beating last-place Clarendon 87-66 at the OC Sports Center, Helms was far from pleased with the effort he saw, especially with a showdown at No. 9 Midland College looming on Thursday.

“They think they can turn it on and off when they want to,” Helms said. “When you’re playing Clarendon, you’d better hustle. We got outrebounded in the second half. Every time something was going good for us, we just decided we’d relax and loaf around.

“I hope our fans back us and support us Thursday at Midland. They’ll play, but I keep telling them you can’t play up-and-down because you’re going to get caught on it in that situation.”

As in their previous home outing — an 89-62 victory over New Mexico Military — OC fell behind in the middle of the first half before surging back into the lead.

“It’s a shame,” Helms said. “This team played so well at South Plains (winning 70-65 last Thursday), and there’s probably five people in Odessa that know what that situation was like. Then we got here and I saw a couple of people out here I haven’t seen, and we go out and give them this. I’m just disappointed.

“We were lackluster against (New Mexico Military), but I lived with that. You figure you’re going to learn and do it. We didn’t learn a thing. We didn’t run our offense, and we didn’t care to run it.”

Even with some rough spots, OC (25-2 overall, 12-1 WJCAC) extended its winning streak to 14 games and lowered its magic number for clinching the conference title to two. Odessa High graduate Jamel Guyton scored 27 points, Delrico Lane and Tommie Sykes each had 16 points, and Devon McLendon had 12 points off the bench.

“We’re just trying to take it a game at a time, staying humble as a team and knowing what we’ve got to work towards,” said Lane, who added game highs with eight rebounds and seven assists. “That’s winning one game at a time and not looking ahead and losing focus.”

OC made 30 of 59 shots from the floor, including 11 of 24 3-point attempts. The Wranglers’ 19 turnovers were just part of the reason for Helms’ assessment.

“His main point was that we’ve got to watch those sloppy moments,” Lane said. “We’ve got to eliminate them as much as we can and keep everything as smooth as we can at our tempo.”

Neal Welch scored 19 points and Maurice Abraham had 17 points for Clarendon (10-16, 1-12). George Krajnovic had 10 points and seven rebounds.

Clarendon used a 19-6 run in the first half to take a seven-point lead, going up 21-14 on a Germaine Smith 3-pointer with 8:54 to go.

OC responded with an 11-3 run that included three 3-pointers, including one by Guyton at the 6:04 mark that put the Wranglers back in front 25-23. They outscored Clarendon 28-7 in the final 7:21 of the half, and Guyton had two baskets in the last 40 seconds, including another 3 at the buzzer.

“The one thing was Jamel got open enough and made 3s when he had to in that situation,” Helms said. “The bottom line is we did what we had to do to win. We were just fortunate we got a little momentum going towards the end of the first half. Jamel made that 3 right before half and put us in a position where we needed to be.”

Odessa College the opened the second half with a 15-3 run, taking a 57-31 lead on a McLendon 3-pointer with 15:30 to go. Clarendon was never closer than 18 the rest of the way.

No. 8 Odessa College 87, Clarendon 66

CLARENDON COLLEGE (10-16, 1-12)

Maurice Abraham 8-13 1-1 17, Germaine Smith 2-4 2-4 7, Chris Smith 3-13 0-0 8, Calvin Hall 1-3 1-2 3, George Krajnovic 5-10 0-1 10, Neal Welch 7-12 0-0 19, Mark Hurd 0-0 0-0 0, Justin Chambers 0-1 0-0 0, Moses Adepujo 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 27-57 4-8 66.

ODESSA COLLEGE (25-2,12-1)

Jamel Guyton 10-20 2-2 27, Jesse Joseph 1-2 2-2 4, Delrico Lane 4-8 4-6 16, Tommie Sykes 6-11 4-8 16, Carlos Rodriguez 3-5 2-2 8, Devon McLendon 4-10 2-2 12, Damien Williams 2-3 0-0 4, Dexter McMarion 0-0 0-0 0, Brian DeLeon 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 30-59 16-22 87.

Halftime - Odessa College 42, Clarendon College 28. 3-Point goals - CC 8-22 (Abraham 0-3, G.Smith 1-2, C.Smith 2-6, Hall 0-1, Welch 5-9, Chambers 0-1), OC 11-24 (Guyton 5-12, Lane 4-6, Rodriguez 0-2, McLendon 2-4). Total fouls - CC 20, OC 12. Fouled out - Abraham. Technical fouls - none. Rebounds - CC 31 (Krajnovic 7), OC 36 (Lane 8). Assists - CC 10 (C.Smith 3), OC 19 (Lane 7).

WJCAC Men

Team Overall Conf.

x-Odessa 25-2 12-1

x-Howard 21-6 10-3

x-Midland College 25-3 11-3

South Plains 21-4 9-4

Western Texas 16-10 6-7

Frank Phillips 15-12 4-9

New Mexico JC 11-15 4-8

Clarendon 10-16 1-12

New Mexico Military 6-19 1-11

x-Clinched berth in NJCAA Region 5 Tournament

Thursday, Feb. 14

Odessa College 70, South Plains 65

Midland College 93, Clarendon 66

Howard 67, New Mexico Military 57

Western Texas 91, Frank Phillips 80

New Mexico JC, open

Monday, Feb. 18

Odessa College 87, Clarendon 66

Midland College 91, Western Texas 67

Howard at New Mexico JC

South Plains at New Mexico Military

Frank Phillips, open

Thursday, Feb. 21

Odessa College at Midland College

Howard at Clarendon

New Mexico JC at Western Texas

New Mexico Military at Frank Phillips

South Plains, open

Monday, Feb. 25

Frank Phillips at Odessa College

South Plains at Howard

Clarendon at New Mexico JC

Western Texas at New Mexico Military

Midland College, open