Smith pours in 32; Garden City grabs first win of Tisdale era

Garden City, KS-After an all-conference campaign at Pratt last season, Caleb Smith wanted to find a winning culture.  

And after just two games, the sophomore guard has not taken long to fit right in with his new team. 

Smith poured in a career-high 32 points, Rutgers transfer, Antonio Chol chipped in 19 on a super-efficient 8-of-10 from the floor, and the Broncbusters beat Northern Oklahoma-Tonkawa, 101-91 Friday night at Conestoga Arena. 

Boston Harker, who missed most of last season with an injured foot, scored 17 points in 33 minutes for Garden City, which improved to 1-1 on the season and earned the first-career victory for interim coach, Isaiah Tisdale.  

"I'm really happy for the guys," Tisdale said afterwards. "This is all them; I didn't score a basket in this game."

That may have been the case, but Tisdale hit all the right notes in his home coaching debut. And that included a pretty simple philosophy: give the ball to his playmakers and let them go to work.  

Harker canned a triple in the left corner that gave the Broncbusters an 80-73 advantage with 7:35 remaining. 

But the Mavericks kept things close after Kody Hickerson's transition layup made it 87-83 with 3:11 to go. They had a chance to make things even more interesting after back-to-back turnovers by Smith and Josiah Sabino.  

But NOC-Tonkawa could never cash in. And after a Mavericks' timeout, Sabino drained a 17-foot baseline jumper, and Harker canned another corner 3 to stretch the lead back to seven, 92-85 with 1:43 remaining.  

"Everybody played a part in this one," Tisdale added. "I thought that we could have guarded a lot better than we did. They started driving on us in the second half and taking us to the hoop. I don't really have any issues with what we did offensively. We scored 101 points, and the bench played a role as well. So, overall, I'm pleased." 

Cloud County transfer, Emmanuel Manyuon connected from deep and hit two free throws down the stretch, and Smith put an exclamation mark on the game with a runout dunk in the closing seconds, as Garden City closed the contest on a 14-8 run.  

After shooting just 5-of-24 from downtown in a six-point opening-night loss at McCook, the Broncbusters finished 8-of-16 on Friday night. They were 15-of-19 from the line and outscored the Mavericks, 52-44 in the paint. 

Smith got the Broncbusters off and running early with a 3-pointer and back-to-back steals to begin the game. His rim-rattling dunk gave Garden City a 36-30 advantage with 6:08 left in the first half. 

James Brown Jr. scored 15 points off the bench for NOC-Tonkawa, which dropped to 0-4. Jack Riley and Benji Nelson each scored 18.