It was, according to Greensburg Coach Dave White, the worst first half shooting performance he can recall having ever been turned in by one of his teams. Unfortunately the chilly offensive effort came in the first round of the state tournament last Wednesday, sending the Rangers to a 56-30 defeat at the hands of top seeded Colony Crest in Hays, ending GHS’s season at 19-6.
Greensburg missed its first five and last six attempts of the first two quarters, going 4-22 before the break for a frigid 18.2 percent.
“We were bad on offense tonight,” White said later. “We shot three’s too much early on and then when we did go inside we got 21 (Brandon Newton, Colony’s 6-3 junior post) in foul trouble (Newton picked up his third personal at the 4:21 mark of the second quarter). But then, after he sat down, we couldn’t hit our lay ups when we got them down low.
“I can think of five in the second quarter we should’ve made. We do and it’s 22-21 at the half (rather than 22-11) and maybe we shoot better from then on if it’s that close.”
As poorly as GHS opened the game offensively, the Rangers trailed only 8-5 in the waning seconds of the first quarter when Adam Haskin was whistled for a foul against Colony’s Todd Johnston beyond the arc with three seconds left. Johnston hit two of the three foul shots to push the first quarter edge to five.
White rejected any suggestion his team’s shooting woes could be traced to being too tight for Greensburg’s first appearance in Hays in 30 years.
“No, it’s just some nights you’re not good enough,” he said. “It’s like I’ve always said, that you’re going to have one night a year when you can’t even beat a junior high girls team, and one night a year when you could beat the Lakers. It’s just too bad we had to have the bad one in the first round at State.”
Despite having to sit the last four minutes of the second quarter, Colony’s Newton played the second half without ever getting his fourth foul and finished as game high scorer with 17 points, 12 rebounds and three assists.
“He (Newton) was so athletic on the inside,” White said. “We’d never seen anyone before that David (Cesmat, 6-4 senior post) couldn’t bother on their shot. But when you can spin around and have the hop to shoot right over him (Cesmat) while fading away, then you’re going to be about impossible to stop at this level.
“I’d have to say he’s (Newton) the most complete post player we’ve seen by far this year. There’s just no one from this year that we’ve played that we could compare him to. He’d have my vote for being all-state.”
Though Greensburg’s shooting warmed slightly in the second half to 8-24 for 33.3 percent, Colony improved even more, going from an even 50 percent (10-20) the first two quarters to hit 15-24 after the break for 62.5 percent. The Rangers shot a chilly 26.1 percent for the game, while the Lancers finished at an overall clip of 56.8 percent.
Despite the disappointment that a one-and-done experience at State inevitably brings, White said he told his players after the game he wasn’t “going to let one game ruin what we accomplished this season. This isn’t the way we wanted it to play out, but one game doesn’t make or break a season.”
White referred to Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski being asked years ago if he’d preferred not having gotten to the NCAA tournament where his team had just been crushed by 45 by a UNLV team that won it all that year.
“I remember he said he’d take getting there every time, regardless of the outcome,” White said. “I feel the same way.”
White also grew a bit reflective when asked what this past season and his seniors mean to him.
“It’s hard to say good bye to these kids,” he said. “These seniors have been an integral part of things around here the last three to four years. They’re going to be hard to replace, and that’s because they’re not just good basketball players, but good people.
“We’ve won right at 75 percent of our games while they’ve been a part of this. We’ve won the Skyline tourney the last four years, the league tournament three years ago, and then we win the league title undefeated this year and Sub State.
“And this was such a fun ride this year. Only eight teams got there to State, and it was fun being a part of it, for the kids, the school and the community. Tonight didn’t change that one bit.”
Greensburg, KS —
