[2022-2023 MIAA Men's Basketball Athletes of the Week: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association announced its sixth MIAA Men’s Basketball Athlete of the Week, presented by Shift Group, for the 2022-23 season.
 
MIAA Men’s Basketball Athlete of the Week – Owen Long – Emporia State
Owen Long ran his string of 20-plus-point-games to four straight last week. He scored an Emporia State career high 29 points, including a 6-of-8 performance from beyond the three-point arc in the No. 22-ranked Hornets’ 74-65 win over No. 1 Northwest Missouri. Long scored 12 points in a four-minute span that took from ESU from down six into a 27-27 tie with 5:22 left in the first half. He went 6-of-6 from the free throw line in the final 47 seconds to ice ESU’s first win in school history over the top-ranked Division II team in the nation. He came back with 23 points with five treys in the Hornets 68-64 loss to Missouri Western. After the Griffons took their biggest lead of the afternoon at 60-48, he went on a personal 10-1 run to pull ESU within 61-58 with 3:33 left. The run was capped by a four-point play when he was fouled after hitting a three-pointer. Heading into the break, Long is currently the leading scorer in MIAA only games and ranks sixth overall in scoring in the association.
 
NOTABLE PERFORMANCES
Curtis Haywood II – Central Oklahoma
Curtis Haywood did it all for No. 11 Central Oklahoma in leading the Bronchos to a pair of MIAA road wins last week. The senior guard averaged 15.0 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 2.0 steals, and 1.5 blocks per game for the week. In the Bronchos 66-61 win over Fort Hays State, Haywood’s defense was key in holding the Tigers’ leading scorer Kaleb Hammeke to 11 points. He then scored 15 points to go with eight assists, seven rebounds, three blocks, two steals and zero turnovers in 40 minutes of action in the Bronchos 62-53 victory over Nebraska Kearney.
 
Kevin Kone – Lincoln
Kevin Kone posted his sixth double-double of the season to lead Lincoln to a 79-64 win over Concordia-St. Paul in Lincoln’s only neutral site game of 2022-23. Kone led the Blue Tigers with 21 points and 11 rebounds while shooting .588 percent from the field. Kone additionally blocked a shot, recorded three steals and dished an assist as Lincoln improved to 6-2 overall.
 
Tyler Nelson – Washburn
Tyler Nelson scored a season-high 19 points going 4-of-8 from deep while adding seven rebounds, six assists and a career-high six steals in 37 minutes in Washburn’s win over Missouri Western, the Ichabods only action of the week. Nelson’s six steals is the most by an Ichabod since Will McNeill had seven against Missouri Southern on Jan. 31, 2013.
 
ALSO NOMINATED
Bennett Stirtz (Northwest Missouri), Avery Taggart (Missouri Southern), Gilbert Peters (Fort Hays State), Mikel Henderson (Central Missouri), Christian Cook (Northeastern State)
 
ABOUT SHIFT GROUP
Shift Group is a training and recruiting platform placing talented, retired collegiate and professional athletes in high caliber Software Sales positions. Athletes spend their lives engaging in team-based activities where they are rewarded for performance-based outcomes. Competitive drive, work ethic, and the desire to win are innate qualities of those performing at elite levels. Athletes at this level must have discipline, resilience, and grit. These are the intangible parts of any elite athlete’s identity. When combined with confidence, curiosity, and coachability, these traits separate great athletes – and great salespeople. Salesmanship can be taught. It requires the right attitude, habits, and skills – learned, practiced, and repeated in the right environment in order to be mastered. Once an athlete finishes Shift Group training, they get access to hiring managers at Startups, Fortune 500’s, and other organizations building out sales teams across the globe – with the Shift Group team coaching them through every step of the process.