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Greyhounds rally for first-round win, 69-63
A six-man Kansas City Kansas squad with nothing to lose made things very interesting for Fort Scott Community College’s men in the first half of a first-round Region VI-Division II Tournament game at Arnold Arena Wednesday night.
The Blue Devils shot well and outworked the Greyhounds on the boards in the first half in building a lead that was as large as 13 points in the first half. But Fort Scott began to take advantage of its depth and crashed the boards harder in the second half, rallying for a 69-63 win that advances the third-seeded Greyhounds (20-11) to a semifinal match with No. 2 Highland Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m.
Fort Scott head coach Michael Cook felt that the Greyhounds’ sluggish play could be attributed to their playoff inexperience.
“We only have one guy who’s played college playoff basketball, Tyler Zinn,” Cook said. “The rest were new and didn’t understand some of the things that were going on out there.”
KCK (8-23), which has been playing with a six-man roster since the beginning of February, made 7 of its first 10 shots form the field on its way to building a big lead. A 14-4 run made it 25-12 with 5:20 left in the first half as wing Malcolm Tate and post Tyson Beringer were leading the way.
But Zinn, who had been in a deep, deep slump his previous two games, jump started the Greyhound offense with a 3-pointer from the left side, then took a steal in for a layup as Fort Scott went on a 9-0 run. Donnie Flowers’ transition basket brought the ’Hounds within 25-21 with 2:22 to go.
A shot by Tate with 19 seconds left put the Devils’ lead at 32-25 going into the break.
John Montgomery scored for Fort Scott to start the second half. But Juwaun Davenport scored half the points in a KCK 8-2 run that pushed the lead to 40-29 with 16:18 to go.
But Davenport, the Devils’ only true guard, also drew his third foul during that run and KCK head coach Kelley Newton apparently did not want to go to his one-man bench, Chance Scott, a 6’ 7” freshman post, unless he absolutely had to. That meant the Blue Devils had to be less aggressive to avoid foul trouble.
Meanwhile, the Greyhounds were able to force some of the Devils’ starters to do things they weren’t used to doing, which also contributed to Fort Scott’s rally, which began when Andre Nelson scored in transition with 15:43 to go, sparking a 21-6 run over the next 7-plus minutes.
“We stuck with the game plan,” Cook said. “Whenever (Davenport) gave it up, we wanted to face guard him and make someone else beat us off the dribble. We wanted to make (Tate), who’s used to shooting threes, be a ball handler and he wasn’t used to that. Then the big kid (Beringer) had to be a ball handler and he also had to bang in the post with Donnie.”
Sanders scored 10 of his team-leading 17 points during the run. He finished the night making 6 of 8 shots against Beringer, who eventually fouled out, and Scott, who had to come in when DeVonte Beard drew his fourth foul at the 13-minute mark.
“I thought Donnie gave us great minutes off the bench,” Cook said. “That’s why we went big. Donnie was rebounding and was freeing things up for Dontrell (Sanders).
“We’re going to need all eight of our guys. There’s no rest for the weary.”
Though Kansas City never led again, the Blue Devils were able to keep the score close for a while. Davenport hit a 3-pointer with 1:58 to go to bring KCK within 63-60. Moments after that, he converted a Greyhound turnover to score with 40 seconds left, cutting the deficit to 64-62.
By that time, however, Kansas City was down to four players and couldn’t keep Nelson from finding Sanders for a hoop-and-some-harm with 16 seconds left. Sanders converted the 3-point play to make it 67-62.
Zinn, who had only scored 10 points total in his last two games, added 15 for the ’Hounds, while also grabbing 8 rebounds, picking up 5 steals and handing out 5 assists. Montgomery chipped in with 12 points and Nelson finished with 11.
Tate led KCK with 23 points, 14 of those in the first half, while Davenport finished with 16 and Beringer scored 12 before fouling out.
The Greyhounds are 20-game winners for just the sixth time in program history. Fort Scott last won 20 games in 1990-91 under Fred Turner. That team finished 20-10 but didn’t make the playoffs because only the to four teams in each division qualified at that time.
“We get guys coming in here and believing what we’re doing,” Cook said. “We haven’t had 20-win seasons but we’ve had conference championships and we’ve played better. It says a lot about our community. For us to go 10-2 at home, it says a lot for everyone who comes to watch us play. We wouldn’t be a 20-win team if we didn’t have the community behind us. That was what I said in my first interview, that we wanted to make this a program the community could get behind and we’ve been fortunate to be able to do that.”
Labette got by Hesston on Wednesday’s other first-round game, 71-69. The fourth-seeded Cardinals (15-16) face top seed Johnson County (17-13) today.
(6) KANSAS CITY KANSAS: Davenport 5-8 5-6 16, Beard 1-3 2-2 4, Laws 4-11 0-1 8, Tate 10-17 1-1 23, Scott 0-4 0-0 0, Beringer 4-6 4-5 12. TOTALS: 24-49 12-15 63.
(3) FORT SCOTT: Zinn 5-14 3-4 15, Montgomery 5-12 2-3 12, Davis 1-3 0-0 3, Brocato 0-5 1-4 1, Nelson -49 1-4 11, Jones 1-1 0-0 2, Sanders 6-8 5-5 17, Flowers 2-5 4-5 8. TOTALS: 24-57 16-25 69.
Kansas City Kansas............ 32 31 — 63
Fort Scott................................ 25 44 — 69
Three-point field goals: Kansas City 3-14 (Tate 2-7, Davenport 1-3, Laws 0-1, Beringer 0-1, Beard 0-2), Fort Scott 5-17 (Nelson 2-4, Zinn 2-6, Davis 1-3, Montgomery 0-1, Sanders 0-1, Brocato 0-2).
Total fouls: Kansas City 21, Fort Scott 16. Fouled out: Beard, Beringer.
Rebounds: Kansas City 32 (Laws 12), Fort Scott 35 (Sanders 9, Flowers 9). Assists: Kansas Cty 4 (Davenport 2, Beringer 2), Fort Scott 11 (Zinn 5). Turnovers: Kansas City 19, Fort Scott 15. Steals: Kansas City 9 (Beard 4), Fort Scott 9 (Zinn 5). Blocked shots: Kansas City 4 (Beard 2, Beringer 2), Fort Scott none.