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Even with a healthy team, the Mad Ants had bouts of illness in their 118-101 loss to Rio Grande Valley on Tuesday at Memorial Coliseum.
The symptoms were familiar, if not contagious; invisible interior defense and shaky ball handling.
Rio Grande Valley (23-8) dominated the inside with 62 points in the paint, and the Ants (10-18) helped out with 23 turnovers, including 15 in the first half.
“It was abysmal,” Ants coach Joey Meyer said. “We just did a terrible job. We put ourselves in a hole by turning the ball over.”
But it wasn’t all bad; there were the opening four minutes when the Mad Ants built up a 15-5 lead, including the first bucket of the night on Ron Howard’s three-pointer.
Howard, the team’s leading scorer, had been out of the lineup since mid-January with a fractured left hand, and made his first appearance since Jan. 12.
“Initially it was about the spacing on the floor on defense; where you’re supposed to be and things like that,” Howard said of getting back into the flow. “That was the biggest thing for me to get used to – just remembering my instincts and getting the speed of the game back.”
But after building the 10-point lead, the turnovers came in a flurry.
In five straight possessions, the Ants threw the ball away five straight times, which prompted Meyer to beg for a time out.
The Ants, now holding onto the ball, went ahead 24-15, but then came the other problem when Rio Grande Valley scored on three straight layups and a free throw in a minute, 17 seconds to catch the Ants at 24-all.
Fort Wayne made a valiant lunge at the Vipers midway through the third period when Joe Alexander, who led the team with 23 points, got hot and made three of his team’s four buckets, including the one that got the Mad Ants to within 73-70. But Rio Grande took off on an 11-0 run.
“That’s a good team, but we can’t turn the ball over like that and expect to get wins,” Meyer said.
Notes: Tonight’s scheduled Mad Ants game at Erie, Pa., has been postponed because of inclement weather. The team announced the game will be March 24, the first of three games in Erie from March 24 through March 28. Instead of finishing the season with five road games, the Ants will close out with six away from home. The team also waived forward Jamelle Cornley to make room for Howard. Cornley played nine games and averaged 4.8 points.
