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Tigers look to rebound on the road tonight
2/1/2010
By CONOR NICHOLL
cnicholl@dailynews.net
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. -- While its not discussed among the players and coaches, the Fort Hays State University men's basketball team knows its a two-team race for the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association conference title. The MIAA winner might have the upper hand for the No. 1 and host seed for the South Central Regional.
On Saturday, the Tigers took their first step backward toward those final goals. For the first time all season, FHSU lost to a NCAA Division II team, falling 62-59 at Northwest Missouri State University, a .500 club. The Tigers, ranked No. 3 in Division II and the top seed in the first regional poll, dropped to 17-2 overall, 11-1 in the conference.
Fort Hays now tied with University of Central Missouri (12-1 MIAA), for first place in the conference. UCM is ranked fourth in the country and second in the regional poll. The Tigers and Mules are three games ahead of the rest of the league.
"Obviously that (winning MIAA, No. 1 regional seed) is something that is in the back of the head and we want to do, but with the performance that we did tonight, that is not going to happen," junior Corbin Kuntzsch said. "We've got to change some things that we are doing to be able to do that. Of course we know that it is out there and it is a battle with us and Central for the top. We just got to keep playing hard and keep winning the rest of our games."
Fort Hays receives its next opportunity tonight when they travel 40 miles south from Northwest, and face Missouri Western State University, 13-7 overall, 8-5 in the MIAA and ranked eighth in the region. Women's game starts at 5:30 p.m. followed by the men's contest. FHSU defeated Mo. Western 67-54 in Hays in December in a slow-down, foul-filled contest.
Tiger coach Mark Johnson said today's contest marks the first time Fort Hays "has had to respond to failure all year." The Tigers' first loss came at Kansas State University, ranked in NCAA Division I. FHSU lost the game, 83-76, in a contest that doesn't count for regional seeding.
"Even the K-State game, I don't feel like we walked off the floor feeling like it was a failure," Johnson said. "We walked off the floor like you did a good win. It will be interesting to see how our team responds. We don't have much time. We have to turn right back around and play a very challenging game at Missouri Western."
Fort Hays' loss to Northwest ended the team's 13-game winning streak. Plus, it halted the Tigers' opportunity to become the first MIAA team to record a perfect conference season in 43 years. The MIAA is often regarded as Division II's toughest league. This season is no different. Masseyratings.com gives the MIAA a .923 rating -- no other Division II conference is above .720. Johnson the Tigers never had "aspirations" of a perfect conference mark, saying "that just doesn't happen."
"It would have nice to but in all honesty, it's a lot harder than some of the other divisions and conferences and we knew that," Kuntzsch said. "We knew that it would be tough to do that. Now that is behind us, we can just go play basketball and try to win the rest of our games."
For FHSU to continue winning, they'll need better performances from its top players, namely Kuntzsch and junior guard Dominique Jones. Kuntzsch and Jones, who both average 14 points a contest, combined to score 16 points and shoot 4-of-19 from the field. Both scored in single figures for the first time since December. In addition, Jones had a season-high five turnovers.
"It's a long season and I don't know if he wore down or not, but it was subpar for (Kuntzsch)," Johnson said.
Defensively, the Tigers have shut down several top scorers this season, including Central Missouri's Alex Moosmann, Pittsburg State University's Spencer Magana and Northwest's Elijah Allen. Allen was held to eight points by FHSU in December, but had 24 on Saturday.
"You can't let someone's main player go off on you," Johnson said.
Allen's day helped Northwest shoot 42 percent from the field. Only once, Wednesday versus University of Nebraska-Omaha, as a MIAA opponent shot better than 42 percent against FHSU.
"Our biggest thing is that we have got to get back to guarding people," Kuntzsch said.
"If we had been guarding them like we should have, we would have held them to 50 points tonight instead of 62. That would have won us the game. We need to into guard-guard-help, guard-forward-help. Obviously we need to do some things better to start winning games."
| Scoreboard | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sport | Date | Opponent | Score |
| 2/18 | SW Baptist | L 66-53 | |
| 12/1 | Oklahoma - Panhandle | L 66-60 (OT) | |