Another poor shooting effort at home halted the Fulton Hornets' five-game winning streak.
Fulton shot just 30 percent (19-of-63) as a team in its 80-62 North Central Missouri Conference loss to the Moberly Spartans in front of a full crowd for the Hornets' winter courtwarming Friday night.
"We're having a hard time shooting at home right now and I can't figure out why," Fulton head coach Justin Gilmore said. "Hopefully we can figure out what this curse is and get it right the next home game."
The Hornets (11-5, 4-3 NCMC) are 2-3 at Roger D. Davis Gymnasium this season.
Moberly (10-7, 5-0) - which has now won 24 straight NCMC games dating back to 2014 - exploited its definite height advantage with 6-foot-6 senior Will Rucker.
"We tried to drive (on offense), but they had some trees down there," Gilmore said. "It's a little harder to finish when they have bigger guys down low. We have to be stronger on our finishes."
Rucker tormented the Hornets on both ends of the court, breaking out for a game-high 30 points while collecting 16 rebounds.
"The game plan was to stop him. He's the best player we've seen so far this year, hands down," Gilmore said. "We tried to run people at him (on defense) and tried to get the ball out of his hands, but he finds the ball so well.
"Even when he didn't have the ball, he was getting offensive rebounds, putbacks, tip-ball putbacks. We ran everything we had at him and he just had a heck of a game tonight."
Fulton trailed 17-9 after the first quarter and was only down 37-28 deficit at halftime.
The Spartans, though, opened the second half with an 11-1 run, ending with a pair of Rucker free throws with 4 minutes, 39 seconds remaining in the third quarter. During that stretch, the Hornets were 0-for-6 from the field and 1-for-6 from the foul line. Moberly oustcored Fulton 21-10 in the quarter to stretch its lead to 58-38.
"We switched our defense and went man-to-man out of the gate at half, and tried to run two guys at Rucker to try to make him give up the ball, but we left a couple guys open early," Gilmore said. "We tried to throw everything at him to see if anything worked for the next time we play them."
Braeden Wetrich was one of the Spartans who benefitted from the Hornets' defensive attention on Rucker. Wetrich knocked down 11 of his 21 points in the second half and finished with five 3-pointers.
The Hornets tried to make a run in the fourth quarter, but only outscored Moberly 24-23 as the Spartans were able to close out the 18-point triumph.
"We gave them a bunch of easy layups (in the fourth quarter) and we weren't protecting the rim, and our help side (defense) wasn't the greatest, but I thought we fought all night long," Gilmore said. "The score might not show it, but we gave it everything we had in the second half.
"Our players were trapping and running all around the court, tipping passes, trying to get steals, trying to get something going for us."
Senior guard Radarion Glover directed Fulton with 20 points and senior guard De'Areyon Estes came up with 11.
Friday night marked the first time Gilmore went head-to-head against Moberly head coach Mark Anderson, who coached Gilmore when he was in eighth grade at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Jefferson City.
"It's hopefully the first of many battles to come, but he was the guy when I was growing up who helped me hone my skills and in high school he was there to help me," Gilmore said. "With the passing of Ryan Shaw this summer, he and I sat down a couple of times and talked about some stuff, so he's been awesome and definitely one of my role models in coaching."
Fulton will be the No. 3 seed at this week's Southern Boone Classic. The Hornets face No. 6 seed California in the first round at 9 p.m. Tuesday in the high school gym.