Griffon men aim to put recent struggles in the rearview
By Jacob Meikel
It’s been a rough five and a half weeks for Missouri Western men’s basketball, but the Griffons are looking to put those woes behind them entering the MIAA Tournament.
From Jan. 24 to the end of the regular season on March 2, it’s been quite the skid for the Western men as they’ve gone 2-9 in their last 11 games after starting the season 14-3. With the spot in the conference tournament not guaranteed year-by-year for the team, head coach WIll Martin said during practice on Monday that they’re grateful for the opportunity to continue their season.
“In terms of our process, we’re trying to get better every day,” Martin said. “And that’s been an overarching theme the last two weeks for us. Despite any result, we just want to get better every day and I feel like we’ve done that the last couple of weeks.”
In their 14-3 start before the rough patch in the latter half of the season, Western was taking down teams that are now among the top contenders to win the conference tournament this week. In that span, they defeated No. 15 Emporia State and No. 14 Northwest Missouri State, which was the first time the Griffons defeated the Bearcats in over 10 years. If the Griffs are able to take down Missouri Southern on Wednesday in the first round of the MIAA Tournament, they’ll advance to play top seed Northwest for the third time this season Senior JaRon Thames has been in his fair share of conference tournament and he knows the strengths of the team heading into this crucial week.
“We hit a little skid later in the season, but I still feel like we ‘re that team tournament time,” Thames said. “So we just got to rely on each other, play hard, and don’t forget who we are.”
Junior Taye Fields remains a pivotal piece to the Griffon’s success. He currently leads the Griffs in rebounds by a wide margin and is second on the team in points per game at 12.4. Fields is coming off of his best performance for the Griffons this past weekend against Pitt State in a double overtime loss where he had a career-high 32 points along with 16 rebounds. With yet another MIAA Tournament in front of him, he’s got complete certainty in the group heading into Wednesday.
“We’re taking it as we like we can win the tournament. We feel like we can go in and we can get all four games. So as we go in, we’re just going in with a strong amount of confidence,” Fields said.
