Grizzlies doomed by poor shooting performance; fall on the road to Cloud County

Story by Wyatt Ebersole

The Butler Men could never get anything going on the offensive end in the Grizzlies 44-59 loss on Saturday afternoon at the hands of the Cloud County T-Birds in Concordia. The loss is the Grizzlies second straight and drops them to 10-4 on the year overall and 4-4 in KJCCC play. With the win, the T-Birds improved to 10-3 overall and 6-1 in Jayhawk Conference action.

The Grizzlies and Birds were in a tight, back-and-forth for the first 12 minutes of the game and the teams were tied up at 20 through the first 11:50 of the contest. After this point, offense for the Grizzlies was hard to come by, which started with a three-minute scoring drought. Things really began to turn in Cloud's favor after Joe Kearney of the T-Birds hit two threes in 25 seconds to give Cloud a 30-23 lead with 3:22 left in the half. Cloud would grow their lead to double digits to end the half and they entered the locker room up 37-27.

Things didn't get any better for the Grizzlies in the second half as Cloud would balloon their lead up to 17 points at 44-27 just three minutes into the second half. Cloud would maintain a steady double-digit lead until the Grizzlies started to show some signs of life and eventually cut the deficit down to just seven points after back-to-back baskets from Caleb Golden with still nine minutes left to play. The comeback attempt hopes were slashed when the Grizzlies had a near four-minute scoring drought that saw Cloud build their back to double digits. Coach Kyle Fisher's crew would not be able to mount a serious threat to make a comeback as the Grizzlies ended the game on a 3 minute 13 second drought and suffered their second straight loss.  

This game was certainly the worst game the Grizzlies offense has had all season. They had season lows in shots made (13), shooting percentage (27.7%), and points (44).  

The defense for the Grizzlies was once again impressive as they held Cloud County in check all afternoon, the Grizzlies just couldn't put together much on the offensive end.

The Grizzlies will look to bounce back in their final game of 2022 which is on Monday at home against the Barton Cougars.

NOTES: The Butler Men are 14-7 against Cloud County since 2011…Head coach Kyle Fisher is 6-1 against Cloud in his career…The Grizzlies 27.7% shooting percentage and 13 shots made in the game are the worst marks in the Kyle Fisher era at Butler and are the worst marks for the Grizzlies since March 12th, 2012 when they made 13 shots on 25.5% shooting in a 51-79 loss at Seward…The Grizzlies 44 points scored are the fewest points in a game since at least 2008…This is only the second time the Grizzlies have suffered consecutive losses at multiple points in a season since Kyle Fisher took over the program…