Muleskinner

Issue date: 1/28/10 Section: Access Mules and Jennies Blog

Media Credit: Drew Woolery: Muleskinner Forward Sanijay Watts led the Mules with 22 points and 15 rebounds.

Tremaine Luellen could sense something was wrong. Even before the fourth-ranked Mules took the court, Luellen had a feeling Saturday's afternoon game against lowly Pittsburg State was not going to be easy.

As a senior, Luellen knows this: Games later in the conference season always get tougher, no matter which team you play.

He was right. Instead of the Mules coming back to the Multipurpose Building to blowout the Gorillas after three wins on the road, Central Missouri had to fight its way to a 72-61 win that was closer than the final score indicates.

So what was the problem? Why couldn't the Mules easily dispatch a Gorilla team they had beaten by 23 points earlier in the season?

"We didn't come in with any energy," Luellen said. "Everybody, including me, didn't come out ready to play."

Maybe it was the three-game road trip. Maybe it was the Mules overlooking Pittsburg State, a team that had been underachieving all year. Maybe, the Mules were just sluggish in practice this week.

Whatever the case, the Mules (19-1, 12-1 MIAA) played uninspired for most of the day. Turnovers, sloppy defense and bad fouls left the crowd of 2,801 sitting in silence - either because they were shocked the score was close or by the Mules' lacked of intensity.

"I think we were too excited to play at home," guard Bryce Brunz said. "I thought we tried too hard."

Still, this was the No. 4 team in the country against the worst team in the MIAA. This was preseason All-American Sanijay Watts against CJ Masters, who before this season had a two-year absence from competitive basketball. And most if all, this was a Gorilla team who was winless on the road playing inside the Multipurpose Building, a place where the Mules have won 29 of their past 30 games.

But with 4 minutes to play, the Mules were holding on to just a six-point lead.

"I warned them for three days," coach Kim Anderson said. "Pittsburg State is a team that is struggling, but I knew they were going to make things hard for us."

Somebody, anybody had to raise the energy level for the Mules. That someone was Sanijay Watts.

"I could sense something was wrong," Watts said. "I felt like we took them lightly."

Continued...

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