Home|Sports|Wildcats, Jackrabbits, Puerto Rico win at ‘Summer of Thunder’Sports
Simba FrenchSend an emailAugust 12, 2022 40 2 minute readFacebookTwitterLinkedInShare via Email
The University of Kentucky Wildcats, the South Dakota State University Jackrabbits and Team Puerto Rico all secured victories as the Bahamas Basketball Federation’s (BBF) ‘Summer of Thunder’ continued inside the Baha Mar Convention Center and the Atlantis Imperial Ballroom on Wednesday.
In the only game at Baha Mar, the Wildcats easily took care of the Dominican Republic national select team, 108-56. Daimon Collins and Cason Wallace had 15 points apiece to lead the Wildcats’ balanced scoring attack. Six players scored in double figures.
The Dominican Republic’s Justin Minaya led his team with 11 points.
It was a hot shooting game for the Wildcats as they connected on 56.8 percent of their shots from the field, including going 11-for-26 from deep to shoot 42.3 percent from long distance. They missed just one shot from the charity stripe where they went 13-for-14. Defensively, the Wildcats came away with 13 steals and 10 blocks and the Dominican Republic had 18 turnovers. Kentucky scored 23 points off those turnovers.
The game had two lead changes with the Dominican Republic leading for just 24 seconds in the first half of the game. At the end of the first half, the Wildcats led 43-25. They turned up their offense in the second half as they scored 65 points and held the Dominican Republic to 35 points.
It was the first game for the Wildcats in their ‘Big Blue Bahamas’ tour that wraps up on Sunday against a Bahamian select team.
At Atlantis, the Jackrabbits finished their final game in the Summer of Thunder showcase on a strong note, taking down House of Hoops, 105-57. All 13 Jackrabbits players got on the scoreboard. Matthew Mors led all scorers with 18 points on 6-for-7 shooting from the field.
Rolante Knowles led the House of Hoops team with 14 points and was the only one who scored in double digits.
It was a great shooting game for the Jackrabbits as they shot the ball at a 55 percent clip from the field and made 14 three-pointers. They finished at 43 percent shooting from three-point range.
House of Hoops scored first, going up 2-0 at the 9.28 mark of the first quarter. The Jackrabbits used a 12-3 scoring run to surge in front for good.
In rebounding, the Jackrabbits had a huge advantage with 48 rebounds compared to the House of Hoops’ 26 rebounds.
The Jackrabbits scored 29 points from 22 House of Hoops turnovers.
In the battle of the nations, Puerto Rico got the better of Egypt with a 76-62 victory.
It was a very close game in the first quarter as the Egyptian side was able to come out with a slim 22-21 lead. However, they lost focus in the second and third quarters as Puerto Rico outscored them 38-28 during that span to take a 59-50 lead going into the fourth. A 17-12 advantage in the fourth quarter by Puerto Rico gave them enough to win the game.
Summer of Thunder action continued last night at Atlantis and Baha Mar. Tomorrow night’s game will feature the Wildcats going up against Carleton University at Baha Mar. That game gets underway at 6 p.m.