Sometimes in a basketball game, one player gets so hot that the other team only can wait for him to cool off on his own.
Unfortunately for Haskell Indian Nations University, it had to wait until the last 10 seconds of the game for Bacone's Mike Olden to miss his first shot from the field. Bacone (6-0) defeated Haskell (0-9), 88-73, Saturday behind Olden's 26-point effort, as the point guard shot 90 percent from the field.
"I told the guys before the game that he's not super fast," Haskell coach Jamie Morrison said, "he's not lightning-quick, he's just solid."
Olden's offense wasn't the only nightmare for the Fightin' Indians. He guarded Haskell's Chad Kaler in the second half and limited him to only two points after he led the Indians with 12 points in the first half.
Bacone held a small lead throughout the opening 10 minutes, expanding it to eight before Haskell closed the gap with accurate three-point shooting, hitting five of 11 attempts.
Haskell led 38-36 at halftime after guard Lati Hill's 35-footer in the closing seconds. It was Haskell's last three-pointer. The Indians missed all eight of their three-point attempts in a disastrous second half, in which they were outscored 52-35.
Bacone coach Alan Foster said Haskell's outside shooting in the second half made it a completely different game.
"We talked about challenging their three-point shooters. The first half, they're 5-for-11; the second half, they're 0-for-8," Foster said. "I think we got out there and made them put the ball on the floor and made them penetrate."
Just as Haskell's outside shooting dropped off, Bacone's inside shooting improved dramatically. The Warriors shot 76 percent in the second half after missing more than half their shots in the first half.
Morrison said he thought the Warriors' precise shooting was more of a problem than his own team's offensive woes.
"I thought we had good shots," Morrison said. "We got helter-skelter there for a few minutes in the second half, but they got some easy baskets."
Even worse for the Indians were the turnovers -- 27 in all -- that gave the Warriors more fast-break opportunities for easy points. Morrison said the turnovers were symptomatic of his team's trouble in keeping its mental focus, which he said allowed close games to slip away in each of its nine losses.
"We've got to work on our mental state," Morrison said. "We've been in every game for the most part, so we've got to get mentally healthy."
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