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Nevada Tiger Basketball represents in Joplin's Kaminsky Classic
Ah, the Kaminsky Classic. When you hear those words, you automatically know it's in the middle of the peak of the high school basketball season. Eight teams battling it all out in a three day tournament to see who can win it all in the Joplin High School gymnasium. Nevada played at 3:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon against the Francis Howell Vikings out of the St. Louis area.
Watching the Nevada Tigers warm up right before the game, I could tell that they knew this was a big event. No slacking or jacking around and everyone was all serious. I went over to the head coach of the Nevada Tiger Varsity basketball team Shaun Gray just to strike up a conversation. “How are we looking today?” I asked Gray “They’re a good team,” he said sitting on the bench watching warm ups. “We will either win or we will learn and get better, hopefully both.“ The clock was less than 30 seconds as the Tigers took on the court to go against the Francis Howell Team
First quarter was quite a culture shock. Francis Howell scored 11 points in the first 2 minutes of the ball game, and Nevada used its first time out. After the 30 second huddle, we saw the Tigers make some good moves. The one thing I noticed right off the bat was that we were struggling to get the ball past our half of the court, and if we did that, they seemed to make silly turnovers that we are not used to seeing. #4 Cade Beshore did shoot a three pointer and #5 Brice Budd made a two pointer.
Second quarter didn't get any better. Nevada only scored one point in the quarter versus the 22 Francis Howell made. The one point for Nevada was a free throw that #31 Leo Gayman claimed due to a technical foul Francis Howell had due to them playing a player that wasn’t listed to play. Beshore and Gayman claimed their first foul of the game.
Left in the quarter was 7:12 in the second quarter with the score being 20-6 Francis Howell in the lead. Couple of points were scored from some of the Vikings team, such as #12 Kory McCauley who score a bucket for two points, 30 Tre Liner made a turnover basket from Nevada losing the ball, Lomax Jr scored from Nevada losing the ball, and #3 Gabe James shot a buzzer beater to end the half making the score at the end of the first half 41-6 Francis Howell.
Whatever Coach Gray and his assistant coaches said during half time must have worked, because Nevada looked a lot more competitive in the game. The score of the game didn’t look any better, but the Vikings were not scoring near as much as they were in the beginning. Six points were scored by Nevada in the half, with Budd draining an impressive 3 pointer, at the top of the third quarter.
There was a holding foul on Nevada, with Swearigen being the victim of that. Liner for the Vikings shot free throws making one of two of them. Gayman made a two pointer with 1:50 in the third quarter with the score being 12-47 Vikings. Lomax Jr dropped a three on the game and #32 Ben Toebben for the Vikings put on an impressive 2 pointer to end the half and to make the score 52-12 Francis Howell.
Finishing off the first game of the Kaminsky Classic for the Nevada Tigers, #1 Jack Cheaney was put in the game and had a nice recovery for the ball and took possession. Kendall Gurley shot a nice 3 pointer with 5:00 in the quarter. The score was 12-57 Vikings. Kendall Gurley recovered and made a layup with no issue, causing Nevada to take a time out. More of the same happened in the quarter with Francis Howell making 10 more points, while Nevada only made two, with #14 Drake Ketterman shooting and scoring all of them. Final score of the Ball game was 67-14 Vikings. I got to interview Coach Gray one more time before I left the gym, and asked what he thought of the tough loss the Tigers had tonight.
He quoted “Too many turnovers early is what punched us in the gut tonight. We knew they would be aggressive and knew that they would try to trap us, and we practiced over those things. But it's hard to simulate that in practice. We were just caught off guard on how quickly they trapped and rotated behind us which led to those turnovers. They shot extremely well with 50% of those shots being behind the three point line , and they were getting steals which is what put them on the board early. But what I will say though is that even when the game was in hand for Francis Howell, our guys never gave up and I'm really proud of that effort.”
A good learning opportunity for Nevada’s young basketball team. We have to remember that only four seniors will be lost this year out of the 13 that are on the team. Eleven of them guys on the court will remember this game and will only get better from here on out. When does the getting better and learning begin? Well tomorrow at 4:30, of course. Nevada will play Jefferson City tomorrow at 4:30, which they lost to Joplin earlier today before the Nevada game. We hope to see the same hard working and positive Tigers like we saw today.