Vanlandingham takes one for the team
North Park's star guard had a tooth knocked out, but still leads the conference in scoring as Vikings seek first CCIW win at home against last-place Millikin
Kolden Vanlandingham lost a tooth when he took a teammate’s elbow in the mouth, but he hasn’t lost his scoring touch—he leads the CCIW (18.6 points a game)
Kolden Vanlandingham leads North Park in scoring. No surprise. The junior guard is setting himself up for an encore appearance on the All-CCIW team by leading the conference, averaging 18.6 points a game.
Vanlandingham also leads the Vikings in lost teeth. There’s a story there.
Late in the first half of North Park’s win against North Central in Naperville two weeks ago, Vanlandingham endured some brief turbulence. First, he took a shot on the defensive end of the court during a scrum for a rebound. Then, while underneath the basket to rebound a jump shot by teammate Shamar Pumphrey, his face inadvertently made contact with the business end of Pumphrey’s elbow.
“It happened on a made shot, too,’’ Vanlandingham said. “The ball’s bouncing around the rim, I went up, and I don’t know if Shamar thought I was on the other team, but he kind of had an elbow up and knocked [the tooth] right out.’’
Vanlandingham came out of the game, towel held to his mouth, but when the second half began, he was back in the lineup, and scored 11 points after the break to lead the Vikings to an 84-79 comeback win.
This is basketball, not hockey, so Vanlandingham is not walking around campus, proudly sporting a gap where his tooth should be. The day after the North Central game, he paid a visit to the dentist, who inserted a temporary tooth. The permanent tooth, once it is properly shaded to match the rest of his teeth, is pending.
Vanlandingham missed practice the next two days, but the time spent in the dentist’s chair obviously didn’t hinder his game. He scored 27 points, hitting five threes and converting 10 of 11 free throws, and grabbed a season-high eight rebounds in North Park’s 82-73 win over Millikin in Decatur. “I was fueled up for sure,’’ he said, “rested up.’’
He followed that up with 23 points and another 8 boards in the Vikings’ 70-69 overtime loss against Augustana at North Park last Saturday. Vanlandingham scored 6 points in OT, including the contested layup with 19 seconds left that gave North Park its last lead, 69-68. He nearly made a steal on Augustana’s last possession before Chase Larsen’s jumper from the elbow with three seconds left gave the visitors the win.
North Park gets another crack Wednesday night in the North Park gym against Millikin, which has lost six in a row to fall into last place in the conference with a 2-7 record. Illinois Wesleyan leads the conference with an 8-1 record, a game ahead of Elmhurst (7-2) and a game and a half ahead of Carthage (6-2). North Central is 5-4, and North Park is one of four teams at 3-6 (Carroll, Augustana and Wheaton are the others). Improbably, North Park (8-10 overall) has yet to win a conference game at home. They’ve lost to Carroll, Elmhurst, Carthage, Wheaton and Augustana at home. After Millikin and North Central on Saturday, the Vikings will have just one home game left, a Valentine Day’s encounter with league-leading Wesleyan.
The top six teams qualify for the CCIW tournament; North Park is the defending tournament champion but fighting just to qualify this go-round.
“We’re still right there with the rest of the teams in the conference,’’ he said. “Just focused on what we need to win.’’
Vanlandingham’s 38 points against Carthage remains the highest single-game output by a CCIW player this season. In addition to the 27 he scored in Decatur against Millikin, VanLandingham had 32 vs. Marian ()Wis.) and another 27 vs Central (Iowa). He has missed two games because of a foot injury, and has had three games of single-digit scoring in the conference, 9 against Carroll and Wesleyan, 6 against Wheaton. He shot a combined 1 for 10 from distance against Wheaton and North Central, but is 8 for his last 21 three-point shot attempts.
The Vikings are dependent on their accuracy from long range. In 9 of their 10 losses, they have shot under 30 percent from behind the arc. Lance Nelson has been the team’s best sharpshooter from distance, making 44.4 percent of his 3-point attempts (20 for 45). Nelson rabks second in the CCIW. Davante Robinson is fifth at 42.1 percent. Vanlandingham, who understandably is drawing considerable attention from opposing defenses, ranks 20th in the league in three-point accuracy at 33.6 percent, four percentage points less than what he shot last season (37.7).