WEST PLAINS, Mo. -- Raiders coach Gene Bess has suffered his first losing season in 48 years at Three Rivers.
With Tuesday's season-ending 102-86 loss to MSU-West Plains, Three Rivers finished 12-18 for the year, the first losing season for the program since 1968-69.
"It's one of those years I'd like to avoid, but it happened. There are some things I might have done different, but I gave it my best shot. I think the coaching staff gave it their best shot. We just didn't have enough rebounding and we didn't guard as well as we have to to compete," said Bess, now 1,268-386 in his career at Three Rivers for a .767 winning percentage. "Every year I've started the year feeling like I didn't know whether they would compete or not. We always found a way to compete and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn't want to get fired. So I've been able to stay around for (48) years. Now it's been affirmed that the board and the president aren't going to fire me, so maybe I got comfortable. I think people who know the situation know the coaches gave it their best shot."
Three Rivers has won 20 or more games in 41 seasons under Bess and has 12 seasons with five or fewer losses.
During this season, four players left the team and the Raiders forfeited three wins.
Three Rivers will lose three sophomores in Jeffery Porter, Aidan Saunders and Ludy Kayououd.
"I was just thinking about everything that has been going on during the whole season. We should have had a better start and everything, but it is what it is," Kayouloud said.
After dealing with injuries during his freshman season, Porter started all 30 games for the Raiders and averaged 12.1 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.6 steals.
Porter led the Raiders in rebounding and was second in offensive rebounding despite being the shortest player on the team at 6-feet.
Saunders led the Raiders in scoring with 18 points a game and also averaged 4.2 rebounds, 2 assists and 1.3 steals. Kayouloud, the Raiders' only sophomore forward, averaged 7.9 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.0 assist and 0.8 blocks.
Three Rivers could potentially return three double-digit scorers in Chucky Wilson (11.0 points), Keiondre Jefferson (10.9) and Willie Lucas (10.6).
Porter and Kayouloud were Three Rivers' top two rebounders and Saunders was fifth. Jefferson was third on the team in rebounding (5.8) and fellow freshman forward Corey Bowen was fourth (4.5).
Coming off the school's 22nd Region XVI championship, Three Rivers played with a short roster for much of the season. Two players red-shirted, two forwards left the team in the preseason, a third prior to Thanksgiving and a walk-on guard just before the Christmas break.
The last of which cost the Raiders' three wins. Three Rivers discovered that the walk-on player had dropped below the required number of credit hours to stay eligible, and appeared in three games as an ineligible player. The player did not play in four other wins during the time he was ineligible and played a combined 7 minutes and 30 seconds in the three games. He was 1 for 3 shooting for three points and an assist.
The wins -- against Southwestern Illinois, Hocking and Lang Prep -- switched to losses and the Raiders went into the Christmas break 6-6 instead of 9-3.
It was the first time Three Rivers had been forced to vacate a win.
With injuries mounting in January, the Raiders added Bess' grandson Kolby Bess to the roster shortly before the Jan. 23 game at Arkansas Baptist in order to have seven active players.
Kolby Bess has appeared in five games since. In one of them, a 106-78 win over West Kentucky CTC on Feb. 12, Three Rivers played 10 players for the first and only time since its Dec. 3 forfeit against Southwestern Illinois.
The Raiders struggled with rebounding for much of the season and averaged 11.4 offensive rebounds and 27.2 total rebounds.
They grabbed one rebound less per game than their opponent where last year's Region XVI championship team averaged 5.6 more rebounds per game.
Three Rivers finished with a .500 record in 2012-13 when it was playing without four scholarships because of three violations found in a state audit while the program was on probation.
The Raiders have not gone to the national tournament in the six seasons since, the longest streak of Bess' career.
Three Rivers is expected to open its new home for basketball, the 3,000-seat Libla Family Sports Complex, next season. In 36 seasons at the Bess Activity Center, Three Rivers was 427-68, winning its final game there 106-73 over On Point Academy.
The only other losing season for Three Rivers was under coach Bob Cradic when the Raiders finished 14-15 in 1968-69, the program's second year. The following year, Bess joined Cradic's staff as an assistant coach and Three Rivers finished 23-7, sharing the conference title for the first time.