Box Score

Fort Hays State held off several bursts from Lincoln in the second half to win 88-85 on Saturday (Jan. 11) at Gross Memorial Coliseum in Hays. The win gave head coach Mark Johnson the 258th of his career, becoming the all-time wins leader among coaches in the history of FHSU men's basketball.

Johnson passed Cade Suran for the all-time lead in wins at FHSU. Suran coached at FHSU for 18 seasons from 1946-65.

Lincoln hit the first basket of the game before FHSU went on an 11-0 run at the start of the game. The Tigers led the remainder of the game, but not without constant pressure from the Blue Tigers. The lead reached 13 with 7:04 to go in the first half, but a 19-8 run by Lincoln trimmed the lead all the way down to two with 2:03 remaining before intermission. FHSU closed out the half with an 11-2 run to push its lead back to 11 at 48-37 at the break.

Fort Hays State's lead moved to 14 points three times early in the second half, but the Tigers could never put the game away. Lincoln kept chipping away, bringing the lead back inside eight with 7:30 remaining in the game. With the Tigers shooting lights out at the free-throw line for nearly the entire game, the game appeared secure with 1:38 remaining with FHSU leading by 13. Lincoln though would close the game on a frantic 12-2 run to fall by just three points.

Fort Hays State as a team was a perfect 29-of-29 at the free-throw line until Craig Nicholson missed the back end of a pair with 6:23 to go in the game. Nicholson up until that miss was a perfect 16-of-16. Nicholson would go on to tie the single-game school record for free-throws made in a game with 19, matching Sam McDowell who had 19 in a game in 1963-64. Nicholson finished 19-of-23 at the stripe. The 23 attempts was just one shy of a single-game record at FHSU.

Fort Hays State finished 87.5 percent overall from the free-throw line, hitting 35-of-40 attempts. The Tigers missed four of their last five attempts and were at 97.1 percent (34-of-35) until the final 1:21 of the game.

Nicholson went on to lead the Tigers with 27 points. He added a team-high eight assists. Dwayne Brunson was just one rebound shy of a double-double, finishing with 20 points and nine rebounds. Tomislav Gabric finishing with 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting and a 5-of-5 effort at the free-throw line. Gabric was one of four Tigers to finish the game perfect at the line.

Joshua Buie led Lincoln with 27 points, followed by Charles Cole with 24. Lincoln dropped to 2-13 overall and 0-7 in the MIAA.

Fort Hays State finished 54.2 percent from the field, but the 3-point field goal struggles continued, going just 1-of-10 beyond the arc. The Blue Tigers used 3-point shooting to keep in the game, hitting 9-of-18 attempts to go along with a 50.9 overall percentage from the field.

The Tigers are now 12-3 overall and 4-3 in the MIAA heading into the home/away portion of the MIAA schedule against all the teams on the west side of the conference. FHSU will play each of the six teams twice and just one non-conference game remains on the schedule with South Dakota Mines on Jan. 23 in Hays.