 Sports News Search Classifieds Seniors end careers with loss
March 15, 2000 
TULSA, Okla. - With Columbia College’s loss to Olivet Nazarene on Tuesday, seven seniors have played their final game in a Cougar uniform.Headlining the list are a pair of All-American Midwest Conference forwards – Brandon Moore, who finished the season as the team’s No. 2 scorer (12.8 points per game) and rebounder (6.3 rpg), and Lawrence Thomas, who during the 1998-99 campaign earned Honorable Mention All-American and All-America Scholar Athlete honors. “I enjoyed the season,” Thomas said. “Hopefully Columbia College will come back and continue the legacy of getting to the national tournament next year.” The team’s other seniors are Drew Grzella, Eric Hemmer, Ernie Swan, Kenny Moore and Jeff Timko. NEW LOCATION POSSIBLE: For the past seven years, the NAIA men’s basketball tournament has called Tulsa home. The tournament moved from Kansas City, which played host to the tournament for 50 years, to Tulsa, hoping for resurgence in attendance, but the opposite has happened. Last year’s tournament drew only 31,385 fans – about 4,000 fewer than when it left Kansas City, where ESPN covered the championship game before the move. And with Tuesday’s opening-round attendance counting about 500 in the 8,995-seat capacity Tulsa Convention Center, it does not look like this trend will end soon. The NAIA has received inquiries from 11 cities, with Oklahoma City being the frontrunner to possibly overtake Tulsa as the tournament’s future home. The NAIA’s largest conference, the Sooner Athletic, has five schools within a 50-mile radius of Oklahoma City. SCORING MACHINE: After a game-high 21 points on Tuesday, Jerrod Thompson has now led the Cougars in scoring for the past five games, scoring 20 or more in all but one of these games.
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