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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Senior
Quinton Pippen (Hamburg, Ark./Hamburg) set a career high and won a game at the same time. Pippen's running jumper with 1.7 seconds remaining gave the Cougars a 68-66 victory at Kansas City in a Western Athletic Conference contest on Saturday (Jan. 11).
Pippen finished with a career-high 23 points while adding four assists and three rebounds. He was one of three Cougars in double-digits. Senior
Matt Ross (Dixon, Ill./Dixon) recorded his third double-double of the season with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Ross passed the 500 career points plateau in the contest. Junior
Clarke Rosenberg (Skokie, Ill./Evanston Township) added 15 points and four rebounds. The trio combined for all seven of Chicago State's 3-pointers.
Pippen's basket came five seconds after Kansas City tied the contest at 66 on a dunk by Martez Harrison. Pippen took the inbounds pass from Rosenberg and went coast-to-coast in five seconds for the game winner. However it was only the game winner because of senior
Corey Gray (Houston, Texas/Hightower). The Roos immediately inbounded the ball following Pippen's basket with a long pass to Nelson Kirksey. Gray was the only Cougar back on defense to defend Kirksey, forcing him to attempt a jumper just inside the arc. By the time Kirksey's shot rimmed in and out, Ross had raced down the court to grab the rebound as the buzzer sounded.
"If you look in our guys' eyes, our guys looked very confident," Chicago State head coach
Tracy Dildy said. "They didn't panic and they made plays and that's what this is all about, being able to make plays. We could sit here and say we (as coaches) had this great strategy, no, our guys made plays."
The game saw nine ties and two lead changes in the final 9:32. Chicago State opened a 41-30 lead four minutes into the second half only to see the Roos tie it up at the 10:12 mark. Neither team held more than a three-point lead the rest of the way.
"This is big for our guys to come back on the road and get our second conference victory," Dildy said. "To become WAC champions you need to get some wins on the road. We have two of them."
Kansas City falls to 5-10 (2-1 WAC). Chicago State improves to 7-9 overall and 2-0 in the WAC. It's the Cougars' first 2-0 conference start since opening Mid-Continent Conference play 2-0 in 2004-05.
Chicago State returns home on Thursday (Jan. 16) to host New Mexico State. The Aggies are also undefeated in the WAC. It will be the first home WAC game in program history. Tip at the Jones Convocation Center is set for 7:05 p.m. The game will be aired on WVON 1690 AM.
