JOPLIN, Mo. – The Dallas Christian College men's basketball team fell 77-59 to the second seed University of Los Angeles College of Divinity on Thursday evening in the Semifinals of the Association of Christian College Athletics (ACCA) Tournament.
 
The sixth seed Crusaders entered up against the 2019-20 ACCA Champions, which saw that team rattle off a 30-1 record. This current team improved to 28-2 and earned a chance to advance to the championship game on Friday.
 
The Crusaders will now play in the third place game on Friday at 2:30 p.m. verses the fifth seed Trinity Bible College.

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Tilyr Hobson headlined the Crusaders offense and his best game of the ACCA Tournament thus far with 19 points. He was 8-for-11 scoring on the floor and went a perfect 3-for-3 at the free throw line. The Fort Worth, Texas, native matched a game-high eight rebounds. Jairus Allen and Jason Makayabo also cracked double-digits with 13 points apiece. Makayabo swiped four steals, which was half of DCC's eight total, while Jairus Allen played all 40 minutes. Joseph Allen and Tyjuan Battles combined for the last 14 points and also had a combined 13 boards.
 
DCC was 11-for-15 at the free throw line and were an even 17 and 17 on offensive and defensive boards for 34 total.
 
ULACD shot 58.6 percent in the first half and finished 48.2 overall. The team was 4-of-6 from three-point territory in the first half, but just 5-of-10 overall. The team posted an 18-for-26 mark at the free throw line.
 
Chris Bailey led a quartet of ULACD players in double-digits with 18 points. Michael Guillory and Dani Lynn each had 15, while Dupree Mitchell added three.
 
Credit to the Crusaders, despite the trouble scoring, they did their best to matchup on most categories. DCC held a 12-10 edge on second chance points with six in each frame. ULACD scored all its points in the big first half. DCC did also have more fast break points, 9-7, with both squads tallying seven points in the last 20 minutes. The only major category there was a difference was the bench points, 44-6.
 
The Crusaders worked hard to compete throughout the matchup. Hobson picked up a steal and had a dunk to lead the lower seed to an 8-3 start. About five minutes in, an old fashioned three-point play by Guillory knotted the game at 13 and sparked a 7-0 run to give ULACD a lead that would not be relinquished. DCC answered back to keep the score within two points until another eight points opened the first double-digit lead at 27-17 with nine and a half minutes left in the opening frame. The lead for the opposition would grow to as large as 17, which ended up being the difference at halftime, 46-29. A three by Mitchell with 2:12 minutes was the final points of the stanza, as defenses prevailed on both sides.
 
In the second half, after falling behind 19 points to start things, the Crusaders battled to get back into the game and got as close as 10 (53-43) with 12:03 left after a block by Joseph Allen led to a fastbreak layup by Makayabo. The deficit never shrunk into double-digits, as ULACD would stretched the advantage back up to as many as 24 points late in the contest.
 
Despite the big margin overall, DCC did only get outdone by a point in the entire second half.
 
DCC dropped to 9-16 as it scored its lowest output in seven ACCA games under second-year head coach Dwight Coleman. The Crusaders shot 37.7 percent and were just 2-for-13 on three-point shooting, which added to the team's recent trend of falling in games when not making double-digit totals from long range. That record is now 5-2 in the past seven games, which includes DCC hitting 27 treys in the previous two tournament games this week. It was only the second time since this group came together at the ACCA Tournament that the team scored less than triple-digits. That was a 78-66 victory versus Champion Christian College on March 4, 2021.
 
DCC did go 3-1 in that tournament, but had fallen in the second round of the bracket to Bible Baptist College, who won that year's championship.
 
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