{"id":76962,"date":"2023-12-14T09:25:48","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T15:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=76962"},"modified":"2023-12-14T09:25:50","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T15:25:50","slug":"tigers-handle-threshers-73-48-in-last-home-game-of-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=76962","title":{"rendered":"Tigers handle Threshers 73-48 in last home game of 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Story by RAEGAN NEUFELD<\/strong> Photos by CAYDEN SANDERS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The message has been heard \u2014 loud and clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results? Well, they\u2019ve been playing out quite nicely for the Fort Hays State University men\u2019s basketball team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday night\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery day in practice that\u2019s what we try to do; we emphasize the defensive end of the court,\u201d said junior guard Traejon Davis. \u201cWe know that\u2019s how we\u2019ll win games, and we just have to make a couple shots along with that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers have now held their opponents below 50 points in their last six wins. Their lockdown defense against the Threshers forced 17 turnovers \u2014 13 coming from steals \u2014 which resulted in 19 points on offense. FHSU (8-2)  also scored 25 points on fast breaks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought we had some good individual performances tonight,\u201d said Johnson, whose team leads NCAA Division II in points allowed so far this season. \u201cTraejon Davis was good. I thought Jaheim Holden was really good, and I thought Shaun Riley gave us good minutes off the bench. I would\u2019ve 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\u2019re not really mentally sharp you don\u2019t shoot the ball well. But, overall, our guys did what they needed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe just moved the ball well,\u201d he said. \u201cGuys found me, and I was able to finish at the rim and make a couple shots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaheim Holden and Shaun Riley also finished in double figures with 14 and 11, respectively. Holden grabbed seven rebounds and dished out four assists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scoring has been more evenly distributed for the Tigers this year, with four players averaging between eight and 12 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKaleb\u2019s numbers as far as scoring aren\u2019t as high, and that\u2019s fine,\u201d Johnson said about point guard Kaleb Hammeke. \u201cWe\u2019re still scoring at the same pace or better than we did a year ago. We don\u2019t have to rely on one or two guys to have a special night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than half of Bethel\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe\u2019ve got tough guys that are pretty physical, and they play hard,\u201d Johnson said of his team\u2019s defense. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With just one more game before the holiday break, Johnson is expecting his team to continually improve throughout the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEventually some of these guys are going to start playing better and better,\u201d he said. \u201cWe tell our guys every day, it\u2019s an old adage, but you\u2019re either getting better or worse. You never stay the same. Just try to continually get better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers will resume conference play with a road game against Newman on Sunday before the break, then travel on New Year\u2019s Eve to play Central Oklahoma. FHSU will be back in Gross Memorial Coliseum at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 4 to play Central Missouri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Story by RAEGAN NEUFELD Photos by CAYDEN SANDERS Tiger Media Network The message has been heard \u2014 loud and clear. The results? Well, they\u2019ve been… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":76975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3394,7349],"tags":[11633,3466,10805,14226],"class_list":["post-76962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mens-basketball-sports","category-sports","tag-fhsu-mbb","tag-fhsu-mens-basketball","tag-mbb","tag-raegan-neufeld"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0N5A7792-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76962"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76980,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76962\/revisions\/76980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}