Paul Pleticha
The Windy City Bulls fell to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants 105-100 on Sunday afternoon at the Sears Centre Arena. The Bulls were led once again by star rookie Rawle Alkins who scored a team-high 18 points and had 2 assists and grabbed two rebounds. V.J. Beachem recorded 14 points, grabbed 3 rebounds and had 4 assists coming off the bench. Kaiser Gates had his first career start today and added 12 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and a block. “ Kaiser open some things up for us. Which you saw in the first quarter obviously scoring 32 out the gate. We haven’t done that very many times this year.” Coach Henry commenting on his decision to start Gates over Ferrakohn Hall who pitched in with 10 points in a reserve role off the bench. CJ Fair completed his eighth consecutive double figure scoring game with 16 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks. Although this wasn’t enough especially on the defensive side of the ball for the Bulls as they let the Mad Ants grab 17 offensive rebounds in the game. Coach Henry said this about those rebounds after the game “If exposed the fact we gotta be tougher, we gotta be grittier and we gotta do it with all five guys.” The Mad Ants played today’s game without their leading scorer Edmond Sumner, who averages 24 points per game. He was called up to the Pacers late Saturday night as the team arrived to their hotel. Rob Gray stepped up for his team in a big way to help fill in the hole left by Sumner with a game-high 21 points off the bench. Stephan Hicks tallied 19 points while also grabbing rebounds, while Omari Johnson had 17 points with 6 boards, Davon Reed recorded a 17-point, 10-rebound double-double and Alize Johnson, one of the G League’s top rebounders, score 14 points to go along with a career-high 21 rebounds and 5 assists. The Mad Ants as a whole grabbed 51 rebounds which definitely helped them defeat the Bulls who only managed 35 boards in Sunday’s game. Windy City is now 1-8 all-time against Fort Wayne and have lost the last 6 head-to-head matchups. Windy City will start an east coast road trip consisting of three games starting with the Westchester Knicks this Tuesday November 27th.