By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
KANSAS CITY - The Missouri Western men's basketball team led for more than 33 minutes, and held on to beat Washburn 69-63 in the opening round of the MIAA men's basketball tournament at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City Wednesday.
The Griffons (14-15, 10-13 MIAA) got off to a 12-5 start, but trailed 30-28 at halftime after the Ichabods ended the first half on a 6-0 run.
Washburn (14-15, 11-12 MIAA) went up by four points early in the second half, but Missouri Western responded with an 8-0 run to go up 36-32 with 17:03 left.
The Griffons never trailed after that. Missouri extended their lead to 53-43 with 8:45 remaining.
Washburn closed the gap, but the Griffons again pushed the lead to 62-54 with 2:11 left. The Ichabods got a three-pointer from Jaden Monday and a pair of free throws from Connor Deffebaugh to make it a 64-63 ballgame with 34 seconds to go.
However, Alex John had a fast break dunk off of a pass from JaRon Thames to put the Griffons up 66-63 with 25 seconds left. Then, Thames and Fields combined to make 3-of-4 free throw attempts in the final 20 seconds to put the game on ice.
The Griffons struggled at the free throw line throughout the entire second half Wednesday. Missouri Western finished the game 13-of-24 at the charity stripe, including just 9-of-20 in the second half.
Still, they made enough when it counted.
"Anytime you can get a conference win in the conference tournament on a neutral court, it's extremely difficult to do," Missouri Western assistant coach Jon Hood said. "It was fun to watch and to be a part of. Just have to come out and do it again tomorrow."
Julius Dixon led Missouri Western in scoring with a career-high 20 points on a career-best five made three-pointers. Fields had a game-high 16 rebounds to go with 15 points, tallying his sixth double-double of the season.
"(Fields, Thames) and Julius were locked in and they had a look like, 'Alright, this is going to be a special day," Hood said. "I know Taye and (JaRon) didn't like how it ended down here last year with Rogers State (in the first round)."
Thames had 13 point and a career-best seven steals, while Zion Swader ended with 11. The Griffons nabbed 13 steals and held Washburn to 37.3 percent shooting.
Andrew Orr led Washburn with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Tyler Nelson had 14.
Missouri Western now advances to the MIAA tournament quarterfinals to face No. 1 seed Northwest Missouri State on Thursday at noon. The Bearcats (27-2) had a first-round bye.
The Bearcats have won 23 straight meetings against the Griffons, and ended their season on a 13-game winning streak. Northwest has also won six of the last seven MIAA tournament crowns.
Still, on February 18, Missouri Western hung in until the end against Northwest in a 68-59 loss to the Bearcats in St. Joseph. Hood is hopeful that the Griffons' extra game this week could help them in a big way.
"I like our guys' attitude that they have," Hood said. "I like the guys' preparation they're putting in. Now, we just have to show it in the game. We played them very well in the first half at our place, and that was a fun game to be a part of. Not the result we wanted, but we're going to build on that and we have the momentum."
Tip-off in Thursday's quarterfinal is set for noon. Coverage on KFEQ Radio (680, 95.3, 680kfeq.com) starts at 11:30 a.m.
Interview with Jon Hood
You can follow Tommy on Twitter @TommyKFEQ and St. JosephPost @StJosephPost.