Story by RAEGAN NEUFELD Photos by CAYDEN SANDERS
Tiger Media Network
The message has been heard — loud and clear.
The results? Well, they’ve been playing out quite nicely for the Fort Hays State University men’s basketball team.
Head coach Mark Johnson has always preached the importance of a lockdown defensive effort, and the Tigers have provided their longtime coach with an A+ performance so far this season.
Wednesday night’s non-conference game against Bethel College during finals week proved more of the same as the Tigers rolled to a comfortable 73-48 victory at Gross Memorial Coliseum against their NAIA foe.
“Every day in practice that’s what we try to do; we emphasize the defensive end of the court,” said junior guard Traejon Davis. “We know that’s how we’ll win games, and we just have to make a couple shots along with that.”
The Tigers have now held their opponents below 50 points in their last six wins. Their lockdown defense against the Threshers forced 17 turnovers — 13 coming from steals — which resulted in 19 points on offense. FHSU (8-2) also scored 25 points on fast breaks.
Although Bethel scored the first points of the game, it was all Fort Hays afterwards. The Tigers went on an 11-0 run to pull away comfortably in the start.
Leading 37-24 to start the second half, Fort Hays then went on a 9-0 run and stayed beyond reach for the rest of the game.
“I thought we had some good individual performances tonight,” said Johnson, whose team leads NCAA Division II in points allowed so far this season. “Traejon Davis was good. I thought Jaheim Holden was really good, and I thought Shaun Riley gave us good minutes off the bench. I would’ve liked to see us shoot the ball better. But, a lot of the time this week you have finals and a lot going on. Sometimes offensively if you’re not really mentally sharp you don’t shoot the ball well. But, overall, our guys did what they needed to do.”
Davis led the Tigers with a career-high 19 points, hitting 6 of 8 field goals and making all seven of his attempts from the free-throw line. He also recorded eight rebounds and two assists.
“We just moved the ball well,” he said. “Guys found me, and I was able to finish at the rim and make a couple shots.”
Jaheim Holden and Shaun Riley also finished in double figures with 14 and 11, respectively. Holden grabbed seven rebounds and dished out four assists.
Scoring has been more evenly distributed for the Tigers this year, with four players averaging between eight and 12 points.
“Kaleb’s numbers as far as scoring aren’t as high, and that’s fine,” Johnson said about point guard Kaleb Hammeke. “We’re still scoring at the same pace or better than we did a year ago. We don’t have to rely on one or two guys to have a special night.”
Fort Hays finished the night shooting 45%. The Tigers only made three 3-pointers for 16.7%, but finished at 80% from the free-throw line.
More than half of Bethel’s points came from 3-pointers (5 of 20, 25%) and free throws (15 of 20, 75%), and the Threshers shot just 28% overall from the field. Keyaun Hoskin and Jalyn Todd were the top scorers for the Threshers with seven points each.
“We’ve got tough guys that are pretty physical, and they play hard,” Johnson said of his team’s defense. “They take every possession on defense important, no matter what the score is. A lot of them have good motors. You have to have a motor to be flying around, and we have enough of those guys who are willing to do that.”
With just one more game before the holiday break, Johnson is expecting his team to continually improve throughout the season.
“Eventually some of these guys are going to start playing better and better,” he said. “We tell our guys every day, it’s an old adage, but you’re either getting better or worse. You never stay the same. Just try to continually get better.”
The Tigers will resume conference play with a road game against Newman on Sunday before the break, then travel on New Year’s Eve to play Central Oklahoma. FHSU will be back in Gross Memorial Coliseum at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 4 to play Central Missouri.
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