QC COLLEGE MEN'S BASKETBALL: Defense carries Vikings to season-opening victory
Augustana College men's basketball coach Jordan Delp was a happy man Tuesday evening.
Getting his first official victory as head coach at his alma mater made for a great debut for the 2024-25 season.
But more than securing an 82-70 victory over visiting Coe (1-1) at the Carver Center, it was how his Vikings took care of business against a team that made the NCAA Division III Tournament the past two seasons that made Delp happiest.
"It was big for our team," Delp said of the win. "I don't really care what it looks like for me, it really doesn't matter. For us to come out and execute our game plan and play with multiple efforts on every single possession ... I saw a team that was playing for one another, and I saw a group that was sacrificing for the guy next to them. That's what I'm excited about."
While the Vikings scored the first seven points of the game, taking a lead they never relinquished, Delp loved the fact that they started the campaign with seven straight defensive stops to gain that advantage.
"The biggest thing that stands out to me is that we started the game with seven stops in a row, which is a huge way to set the tone," Delp said. "We let go of the rope a little bit and gave up too many points in the first half."
"You can't ask for a better start to the season or a game than that," Augie senior guard Evan Ambrose said of that defensive start. "Give credit to Coe, that's a really good team and they battled back, but our defense is something that we've worked a lot on this off-season."
The Kohawks made the Vikings work for the victory. Coe, down as many as 12 in the first half, scored on 11 of its final 16 possessions of the first half — with only one missed shot in the final 81⁄2 minutes — to cut Augie's halftime lead to 48-43.
The Vikings, though, accepted their halftime challenge and held the Kohawks to 27 second-half points to secure the victory.
"There's a new energy in the locker room," said Ambrose, who led the Vikings with 23 points. "This group of guys are so together and so ready to go. That's a testament to the preparation that we put in as a team in our offseason work. We're champing at the bit to play whoever, whenever at any time."
"You can win a lot of games giving up only 27 points in the second half," Delp said. "We really wore them down and kept our pressure up and won that game, in my opinion, on the defensive end. I know we scored it, but we won that game because we battened down the hatches and gave up 27 points in the second half."
The Kohawks pulled to within 50-47 early in the second half, but the Vikings went on a 12-2 run to regain control.
In that run, sophomore Ray Maurchie from Winnebago scored six of his nine points. He also helped give the Vikings an inside presence with six rebounds as Chase Larsen (four points) and Mikey Hamilton (two points) grabbed seven rebounds each to lead the Vikings to a 29-24 rebounding edge.
Fifth-year player Tyler Knuth turned five made 3-pointers into a 21-point effort, and first-year Viking Shaun Kelley, a Peoria prep who transferred in from Cleveland State, added 12 points to go with some high-energy defense that left Delp smiling as he played 11 players and got contributions of some sort from all of them.
He was also pleased with how engaged his bench was in the victory.
Coe, which beat Cornell 90-78 last Friday in its season opener, had four players score in double digits led by Cole Hrubes's 14 points. Former Pleasant Valley High School prep Ryan Dolphin started for Coe and finished with five points in 17 minutes of action.
The Kohawks are now coached by 2018 St. Ambrose University graduate John Payan.
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