Buckingham, Jobe Power SE to Win

DURANT, Okla. – Kevin Buckingham and Jett Jobe combined for more than half of Southeastern's points in an 80-64 victory over Oklahoma Baptist on Thursday night in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
 
The win lifts the Savage Storm to 13-6 overall and 9-6 in conference play heading into a weekend road matchup with Southern Nazarene at 2 p.m. on Feb. 9 in Bethany, Okla.
 
"I thought we set the tone with our pace early," said head coach Kelly Green. "Whenever we got a couple defensive stops and we went and got out in transition and we got out in transition a little bit and got more energy playing defense early. The pace of the game to start was not where we wanted it, but I thought we did a good job to make it difficult to get into any kind of rhythm early."
 
Buckingham and Jobe combined for 48 of the teams 80 points, with Buckingham turning in 28 points on 11-of-17 shooting with three threes, while Jobe finished with 20 for the second-straight game and was 6-of-9 from the floor, including a 4-of-6 effort from beyond the arc.
 
Al Ervin joined the pair in double-figures with 14 as the three starters combined for 77.5 percent of the team's points in the contest.
 
Southeastern shot 44.8 percent from the floor overall and 44.0 from three-point range, but picked up the pace at the free throw line where they hit 89.5 percent, or 17-of-19 tries.
 
Jobe also dished out a game-high six assists, while Adam Dworsky came off the bench in his second game back in action to hand out four.
 
Buckingham completed his eighth double-double of the season with a game-high 14 rebounds, while Kellen Manek hauled in eight and Ervin pulled down seven.
 
Despite the Storm scoring the game's first four points, all by Ervin, the pace was slow, crawling to a 9-9 tie by the 13:47 mark.
 
Buckingham would connect on a layup on the Storm's next trip down the floor and that would trigger a 20-0 run that last just under six minutes and was capped by a Jobe layup that put SE up 29-9 with 7:44 to play in the half.
 
The Storm lead would grow to as many as 23 points before a late OBU push trimmed the SE lead to 40-24 at halftime.
 
The lead hovered in that range in the early going of the second half before an Ervin bucket at the 17:06 mark pushed the gap back to 20 points at 46-26.
 
The Bison would twice close it to 16 points over the next seven minutes before threes form D.J. Henderson and Ervin followed by a pair of Jobe free throws pushed the advantage out to 24 points at 68-44 with 9:16 to play.
 
The lead would hit its largest at 25 points on a Jobe three with 8:20 to play, making the score 71-46.
 
OBU would trim the Storm edge late to fashion an 80-64 final score.