POPLAR BLUFF – The Three Rivers men's basketball team continues to roll in "revenge week" as the Raiders handed Missouri State-West Plains a 72-57 setback at the Libla Family Sports Complex on Monday night.
In the last meeting between these two teams, the Raiders dropped the game 77-75 on a buzzer-beater back on Dec. 1 in West Plains, but just like Three Rivers' previous two games against Mineral Area and Motlow State, the Raiders were able to win by more than 20 points.
"We had one of our best defensive showings of the season in the first half," Raiders head coach Brian Bess said. "I was really happy about our first half defense... We've been shooting the ball well the last two games, but (Monday) we weren't shooting it as well, we didn't hardly miss. But our effort was still good, so we were happy about that."
All five starters for the Raiders hit double figures led by Keith Kiner dropping 15 points followed by Shannon Strickland with 14, Lamar Wilkerson and Paul Greene had 12 a piece and Kinyon Hodges ended his night with 10 points.
Coming out of Monday's game, the Raiders ended a three-game home stand with three huge wins, two of them over Region XVI opponents, and Bess has noticed a shift in attitude of his team.
"Our leadership has been really good," Bess said. "They're holding each other accountable. Like Keith took a bad shot and a couple of the guys told him to not take that shot again. If he took that shot 10 games ago, nobody would've said anything to him and he would've tried to take that bad shot again. Me fussing is different than the team holding each other accountable."
The Raiders (11-8, 3-3 XVI) set the tone early as they led the Grizzlies (8-13, 2-3 XVI) 16-7 through the first four and a half minutes of play and went on a 16-8 run from there to make it 32-15 with less than seven minutes until halftime. Three Rivers eventually padded their lead to 41-22 at the break.
Coming out of the locker room, Strickland turned it up a notch as he scored eight points in the first three minutes after scoring only a pair of points in the first half as the Raiders took a 55-34 lead with 15 minutes to play in the second half.
From there, the Raiders were able to cruise to the victory.
Up next for Three Rivers will be a trip to Moberly Area for another Region XVI matchup.
"Coach Pat Smith over there is a legend and he's a Hall of Famer for a reason," Bess said. "They're a well coached team and that's the thing about Region XVI. Every team is well coached and loaded. We've got a very good team and we're getting competitive at the right time."
The Lady Raiders were supposed to join the Raiders on the road trip to Moberly Area, but the women's game has been postponed due to COVID-19 related issues within their program. No makeup date has been announced as of Monday. The men's game on Wednesday will tip off at 7 p.m.
Robert Augsdorfer - Daily American Republic