Broncbusters bounce back behind Jones' 31

Garden City, KS-Ball movement and defense, it's what Rusty Elmore preaches every game. 

Both concepts worked very well on Saturday.  

Braxton Jones scored 31 points, Brody Robinson had 17 points and 13 assists, and Garden City ran away from Northwest Tech, 91-76 at Conestoga Arena. 

The Broncbusters turned 16 Maverick turnovers into 25 points as Elmore's bunch snapped a three-game skid to improve to 7-5 overall and 4-3 in league play. 

"This feels good; we haven't won a game in two weeks," Elmore said afterwards. "Hopefully we get this one tomorrow and go into the break on a little bit of a run." 

Garden City, which shot a season-high 61 percent from the floor, finished 8-of-20 from deep and 17-of-20 from the line. They outscored Northwest Tech, 40-32 in the paint and recorded 24 assists on 33 made baskets.  

"To be honest, it's been a struggle the first half of the season," Elmore admitted. "I mean, we could probably go .500 in league with all the guys in street clothes on the bench."

Those players included Cooper Autry and Boston Harker, two returners from last year's squad who both missed the game because of injury. 

"We got the win, that's the most important thing," Elmore added.

The Broncbusters looked flat in the game's first two minutes, prompting the second-year coach to burn a quick timeout. After the stoppage though, Garden City went to work. Jones hit a 3; then found Thomas Tut underneath for a layup, Robinson lobbed a pass to Tut for a dunk, and Jones rattled home a 3-pointer, fueling a 14-1 run that gave the Broncbusters an 18-8 advantage with 14:43 remaining.  

"We just have to figure out how to be more consistent," Elmore stated. "That's the key to all of this. We need to perform like this against a top-25 team." 

Jones' triple from the wing with 4:38 to go, gave Garden City its largest lead of the first half, 39-26. They were up 12 at the intermission.  

"For the most part, I really like what we did today," Elmore said. "But we had some momentary lapses."

One of those stretches happened early in the second half, when Northwest Tech used 19-10 run to pull to within three with 13:25 left. But that's as close as the Mavericks came. Robinson answered with a three-point play and a foul-line jumper, Tut buried two free throws, and Robinson swished a shot from the elbow, giving Garden City a 10-point cushion. 

"We have to limit those times when we are not scoring points for long stretches," Elmore said. "That's hurt us a bunch this year."

Jones' final jumper of the night, an off-balance 18-footer, gave the Broncbusters their largest lead, 86-66 with 1:59 on the clock. The transfer from Hartford finished 11-of-16 from the floor and 6-of-10 from beyond the arc. 

Tut had 18 points and five rebounds for Garden City. Charles Chukwu added 13 points and six boards, and Garden City native, Jace Steinmetz scored seven points in nine minutes off the bench. 

Keyishon Miller led the Mavericks with 17 points, five assists, and four steals. Taiden Conner added 16 points and seven boards.