WICHITA - Men's Basketball returned home for their first home matchup of 2023, taking on the visiting Missouri Western Griffons who have never lost to the Jets in their 3 previous matchups dating back to February 1st, 2020.
The Griffons win streak over the Jets would end tonight as Newman dominated the men in black, 71-55.
Newman would take care of the then 8-6, 4-4 Griffons from the start by opening the game with a 14-2 run as
Stevie Smith's 3 pointer at the 16:20 mark capped up 12 straight Newman points to cause a MWSU timeout.
Thomas Zevgaras would come up big for the Jets in the first half and lead the way heading into the locker room at halftime with 9 points. The freshman from Greece would finish the game with 5 rebounds, and a 3 assists.
Missouri Western would find themselves down by 13 at half and wouldn't get the deficit under 10 until 13 minutes left in the game. The Griffons couldn't find their groove even as they were able to bring the game to within 3 due to the
Stevie Strong and
Stevie Smith connection who would score the Jets next 8 points to push themselves away from a Missouri Western comeback.
Latik Murphy finished the game with 12 points, making big shots to help down the Griffons on 5-9 shooting from the floor.
Sam Somerhalder was perfect on the floor today as the freshman from Shawnee, Kansas was 4-4 from the field and 3-3 from the free throw line to earn 11 points on the night, his best performance since his 12 point night at UNK in December.
The Jets wore the Griffons out on the court and wouldn't give them any room to breathe on the defensive end. Newman outshot MWSU 54.5% to 32.8% and held them to their 3rd lowest scoring performance this season in route to a 16 point victory.
4 Jets would reach double digit scoring in one of Newman's best team performances of the season.
Jacob Joe would finish with 7 points off the bench and finish 4-4 from the free throw line.
Newman will look to build off their dominating performance and score an upset this Saturday as #3 Northwest Missouri will travel to Wichita for a matchup set for 3:30 PM.
