Hastings College Men Win Regular Season GPAC Championship

Crete, NE – It's been 33 years since the Hastings College men's basketball team had won a regular season conference title. The Great Plains Athletic Conference didn't exist as the Broncos' last conference crown came back during the Nebraska-Iowa Athletic Conference days but all of that changed on Saturday afternoon when the Broncos defeated Doane 83-70 to claim a share of the GPAC regular season title with Northwestern and Concordia. Hastings finally ended the drought that brought plenty of cheers and of course a cold shower for Head Coach Todd Raridon.

It didn't take long for Hastings to assert who was the better team between them and the Tigers as the Broncos made sure this would not end in defeat. Anthony Thompson hit an early three and Danilo Matovic dominated the paint all night long as Doane could not find answers on either end of the floor.

The Tigers tried to make a game of it and were within a point at 17-16 but the lead quickly grew to 10 as Reggie Thomas picked up a steal and a layup followed by a layup from Matovic to make it 21-16. Matovic then scored again from the low block and would get fouled as he made the free throw to make it 24-16 with 7:33 to go in the first half. Grady Corrigan got in on the act knocking down a jumper to go up 10 with 6:54 to go in the half.

From there it was all Thomas and Matovic as the Tigers struggled to keep pace.

Matovic picked one heck of a time for his best game as a Bronco scoring a career high 26 points as he was 11-for-13 from the floor and 4-for-6 from the line. Thomas finished with 25 points as he was 11-for-17 from the floor and he pulled down six boards. Tyrique McMurrin added 13 points as he was 5-for-10 from the floor. Quinn Johnson finished with 10 points off the bench as he was 4-of-5 from the field.

The Broncos finished the night shooting 60 percent (35-for-58) from the floor while Doane shot 49 percent (25-for-51). The rebounding edge favored the Broncos 30-to-24 but the major difference was points in the paint as HC outscored the Tigers 44-to-20.

Hastings improves to 20-8 (15-5) on the year and will be the No. 2 seed in the GPAC tournament as Briar Cliff will come to town for the GPAC quarterfinal matchup on Feb. 28 with tipoff set for 7:00 pm inside Lynn Farrell Arena.