Hutchinson CC Sports Information

The Hutchinson Community College men's basketball team is ready for the calendar to flip to February.

Since returning from the holiday break, the Blue Dragons have gone only 5-4 and those four losses have been by a combined total of 11 points.

Now with four weeks remaining in the 2020 regular season, the Blue Dragons (16-5) will try to climb back into the conference championship race with first-place Barton coming into the Sports Arena at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

The game will be broadcast live on Blue Dragon flagship station KHUT-FM (102.9) and sister stations KWBW-AM/FM (1450/98.5) at 7:20 p.m. with Glen Grunwald (play-by-play) and Dan Naccarato (color) calling the action. The game will also be streamed live on the Blue Dragon Sports Network at 7:20 p.m.

Entering Wednesday's game, the Blue Dragons find themselves two games out of first place in the Jayhawk West with a 7-5 record. Barton and Colby are tied atop the league standing sat 9-3. Colby owns a win over Barton already this season.

Hutchinson looks to reverse a recent negative trend. The Blue Dragons head second-half leads in all four of their losses in January, including leads with less than 3 minutes to play in the last three.

The Blue Dragons led Colby by four points with 1:27 to play, but the Trojans closed the game on a 10-2 run to hand the Dragons another tough loss.

Tyler Brown led the Blue Dragons on Sunday against Colby with 19 points. Saquan Singleton had 17 points and Josh Baker had 14. The Dragons shot a season-high 60.4 percent from the field, but Colby still prevailed.

The Dragons are allowing 80.1 points per game and opponents to shoot 40.7 percent in January. Rebounding has also been an issue, allowing 14.5 offensive rebounds per game.

Hutchinson will have to defend a potent Barton lineup that has five players scoring in double figures and nine players averaging at least 7.4 points per game. The Cougars are the second-best scoring team in the KJCCC at 93.0 points per game. They are second in field-goal percentage at 49.7 percent.

The Cougars defeated Seward County on Wednesday 87-86 on Mavrick Gildyard's game-winning shot with 4 seconds remaining in the game at Great Bend. Deandre Bowles had 21 points to lead Barton in the win over Seward County. Martin Vogts came off the bench to score 15 points, while Jaheim Holden had 14 points and Desean Munson had 12. The Cougars were out-shot by the Saints, but forced 23 turnovers to stay close.