 Sports News Search Classifieds Cougars blow out Fightin' Indians
February 22, 2000 
On senior night at Columbia College’s Southwell Gymnasium, it was a junior who stole the show. Sharpshooting two guard Jerrod Thompson ended his two-game slide by scoring a career-high 34 points and setting a school record with 10 3-pointers in Columbia’s 114-70 thrashing of Haskell Indian Nations University (1-25).The Cougars (22-7) were coming off a pair of heartbreaking road losses to American Midwest Conference foes by a combined three points: 64-62 to Missouri Baptist on Thursday and 61-60 at McKendree Saturday. In the process, the Cougars had lost the No. 1 seed in next week’s AMC tournament and were looking for redemption. "It was nice to play a game that wasn’t decided in the last minute of play," Columbia coach Bob Burchard said. "Those two losses really hit us in the gut." The Fightin’ Indians of Haskell never stood a chance as the Cougars torched them on 59 percent shooting from the field on a night of career highs. In addition to Thompson’s record night, forward Jason Wright’s 11 points, forward Jason Keen’s 12 points, and guard Josh Bindell’s 3 points were all career highs mostly due to the generosity of coach Burchard in distributing playing minutes. "Typically, we don’t get to play this many people this late into the season, but it was a nice change," Burchard said. Thompson was coming off poor shooting games of seven points against McKendree and 13 points on 4-of-14 shooting against Missouri Baptist. "You always want to come out of a slump," said Thompson, the team’s leading scorer at 12.4 points per game. "But you never expect to do it like this. It gives me a lot of confidence entering the tournament next week." Guard Armeake Estes was the Cougar’s second leading scorer with 15, and forward Brandon Moore added 14. "Jerrod’s performance didn’t surprise me one bit," Moore said. "You should see him in practice." The Cougars started the game in their trademark slow fashion, trading baskets with the Native Americans of Haskell for the first 11 minutes of the first half. After a Burchard time out, Columbia went on a 24-3 and numerous 6-0 runs to turn it into a blowout. The smaller Haskell team relied on its perimeter shooting and was led by forward Andy Deal’s 14 points. This marked the final home regular-season game for six seniors: Kenny Moore, Brandon Moore, Drew Grzella, Eric Hemmer and 1999 All-AMC selection Lawrence Thomas. Friends, parents and other family members of many players traveled to Columbia to send off the seniors in a proper fashion, and the players did not disappoint their supporters. The Cougars have one remaining AMC contest at Harris-Stowe on Saturday night and then will play host to a semifinal game in next week’s AMC tournament. "We haven’t played our best basketball yet," Burchard said.
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