Hot Shooting by Lions Early Too Much as Tigers Fall in MIAA Quarterfinals

FHSU Sports Information Department

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Fort Hays State Men’s Basketball saw its 2016-17 season come to a close on Thursday night (Mar. 2) in the MIAA Tournament Quarterfinals, falling to Missouri Southern 76-67. The Tigers end their season at 18-11 overall and they tied for fourth in the MIAA regular season standings. The Lions improved to 18-11 overall.

Missouri Southern opened the game on an 11-0 run and never looked back, claiming its first win over FHSU in the MIAA Tournament in five tries. The Lions never saw their lead trimmed to less than four in the first half. Missouri Southern led 45-30 at halftime and then never let FHSU closer than seven points in the second half.

That seven-point advantage occurred when the Tigers completed an 11-0 run that spilled over from the end of the first half. FHSU scored the first eight points of the second half, with five of those points from JaQuan Smith. An MSSU 3-point play ended the run and neither team went on much of a run the remainder of the game. The Lions saw their lead reach 13 eight times in the second half before the final margin of nine.

Rob Davis ended the game with a team-high 20 points, the 17th time he reached at least 20 this season. He finished his career with 1,140 points at FHSU over two years, reaching 15th on the all-time scoring list. For his entire collegiate career with two years at Pratt (Kan.) Community College added in, he scored 2,038 points. His season high was a 42-point game at Emporia State that tied the sixth-highest scoring performance in program history.

Davis was the only Tiger to reach double figures in scoring for the game, as Hadley Gillum and Kyler Kinnamon each finished with nine.

The Tigers struggled to shoot the ball all night, finishing at just 33.3 percent (20-of-60) as a team from the field. They were just 35 percent from beyond the 3-point line.

On the flip side, Missouri Southern shot 45.6 percent overall though the mark was above 50 percent for a good chunk of the game. MIAA Freshman of the Year Elyjah Clark had 20 points to lead the Lions, followed by CJ Carr with 19, Lawrence Brown with 13, and JJ Cratit with 12.

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