Lewis-Clark State men's and women's basketball teams to begin NAIA national tournaments
Mar. 13—March Madness is considered by many the best time of college athletics. The upsets, the unpredictability and the Cinderella stories in college basketball all make the month of March one of the most tumultuous and fun times to watch.
The Lewis-Clark State men's and women's basketball teams will begin their rides on the wave of chaos that is national tournament basketball this week.
The fourth-seeded Warrior women begin play at 5:30 p.m. Friday against 13th-seeded Brewton-Parker (Ga.) at the P1FCU Activity Center in Lewiston. The men, who made it as an 11 seed, will play sixth-seeded Hope International (Calif.) at 4 p.m. Friday at Montana Tech in Butte, Mont.
The women will have to play through a combination of relatively unfamiliar opponents to punch their ticket to the Round of 16 in Sioux City, Iowa. The men will have to beat Hope International, and possibly Montana Tech, to make it to the men's Round of 16 in Kansas City, Mo. The LCSC men have already played both the Royals and the Orediggers this season.
Here's what to expect from the Warrior basketball teams' pair of national tournament games on Friday:
Eleventh seed LCSC men vs. sixth seed Hope International at 4 p.m. Friday in Butte, Mont.
The Royals and LCSC are no strangers to each other. The Warriors played Hope International earlier in the year in the Taco Bell Shootout in Caldwell, Idaho.
The Royals won the game by three points on a buzzer-beating shot, which capped off a nonconference schedule in which LCSC started the season 2-4.
A lot has changed since then.
Injuries and departures from the team forced the Warriors to play the bulk of their conference schedule with a rotation that capped out at nine players, and sometimes had as few as seven available due to more sporadic injuries throughout the year. Despite all that, LCSC persevered and went 20-4 since that game against Hope International.
But for the Royals, things have also changed. After losing three straight games to end the month of January, Hope International won seven of its last nine with the only blemishes being single-digit losses to NAIA Top 25 teams Arizona Christian and the Master's (Calif.)
The Royals are led by dominant forwards in 6-foot-7 Gaven Ramirez and 6-4 Sebastian Castro who average around 13 points per game or more and are threats to shoot from inside or outside the perimeter. The speed of Hope International's guards, Grant Sii and Jalen Shores, has helped facilitate a transition offense that's one of the most efficient in the NAIA.
"They're a different team. They have some different players that didn't play against us last time," LCSC coach Austin Johnson said. "And vice versa on our end. We're both a lot better. They're better and we're better than when we played them the first time. ... They do some unique things offensively. In some ways, it helps that we've played them. But they're so different and we're so different. So you got to throw some of that out the window."
The versatility of the Royals' roster has allowed their defense to flourish as one of the best in the country. Hope International forces roughly 17 turnovers a game and is a very vocal defense that switches assignments frequently to great effect. This is a good counter to LCSC's near-positionless rotation. But, as Johnson said, the Warriors are in a much different place than earlier in the year.
Starting center Alton Hamilton, who earned Cascade Conference freshman of the year honors, had just started to see the floor on a consistent basis during the last game between the two teams. Senior forward Jaedon Bradley, who was named Cascade Conference newcomer of the year, had a smaller offensive role than he does now. Senior guard Sam Stockton has also started to pick things up as the season's progressed and is averaging 9.6 points, five rebounds and 4.1 assists per game over his last seven contests.
Senior guard Davian Brown has seen his defense improve over the course of the season. His offense, which at points during the year took a step back with the performances of Hamilton, Bradley and junior guard Quentin Raynor, has seen an uptick in recent games.
Brown in his last thirteen contests has failed to score double-digit points just once. He's scored 18 or more in six of them.
LCSC has a balanced offense across the board. Hamilton and sophomore forward Anthony Peoples Jr. have been battle-tested with a string of multi-talented bigs in the Cascade Conference, Raynor and Bradley are arguably the two best 3-point shooters in the conference and Brown, Bradley and sophomore forward John Lustig have proven more than capable, often efficient, scorers starting at the midrange.
LCSC has been preaching unselfish and positionless basketball the whole year and that identity has become rooted in the success of the team.
Now it's a matter of putting it to the test against another team that plays similarly and seeing which team's philosophy wins out.
"(It's been about) trusting each other," Brown said. "Feeding off each other, trusting our coaching, all of that. And just executing. Executing everything that's given to us."
Fourth seed LCSC women vs. 13th seed Brewton-Parker at 5:30 p.m. Friday in Lewiston.
For the second straight year, the Warriors are guaranteed at least another home game. LCSC was awarded a home site for the first and second rounds of the NAIA tournament and will have the home crowd advantage over the Barons.
Brewton-Parker and the Warriors have met just once before: an 80-63 win for LCSC on March 16, 2006, in the first game for either team in that year's national tournament in Jackson, Tenn.
The slate is completely clean between the two foes, but the game is in the Warriors' backyard (or backcourt). That puts the Barons behind the 8-ball.
"I personally, as a player, think (the home court advantage) is going to be a huge factor," LCSC senior guard Callie Stevens said. "We get our hometown fans, and it's the court we practice on every day. We know those rims. We know that floor, and our fans are awesome. They bring intense energy and they love us and we love them."
LCSC, which was ranked as high as sixth in the NAIA coaches' Top 25 poll this season and finished the final poll ranked eleventh, has seen growth from several players this season that has helped lead them to this point.
Junior guard Ellie Sander earned a first-team all conference nod, the first of her career, and Stevens became the first three-time women's basketball conference player of the year in Cascade Conference history.
The steady growth from other players on the roster has helped the Warriors play the kind of game that they want for most of the year. That game has been stout perimeter defense, unselfish basketball and quick transition points. LCSC has a goal of 21 team assists every game and has met that goal or has been within one dish of that mark in one-third of its games this season.
That kind of efficiency has helped it to a 25-5 overall record in Caelyn Orlandi's first year at the helm of the program. Orlandi has made the national tournament in previous years with the Warriors, but it's been either as an assistant or a player.
"I think how good your players are is how good you are as a coach," Orlandi said. "I truly believe it. We got a player of the year, we got three all-conference performers, we got players that step up every night. I think they're the ones that make you look good. They do, they make you look good. Just like being a point guard. Your teammates make you look good when you get them the assist and they score."
If there's one advantage or equalizer that Brewton-Parker has, it's its speed. LCSC in other games this season has faced speed from the opposition and sometimes it's affected the efficiency of its fast break. The Warriors' size in the paint has allowed them to make up for points lost in failed transition plays. But the Barons have size on top of their speed.
Between its wing and post players, Brewton-Parker has eight players listed at 5-foot-10 or taller. The Barons also have a 16.4 points per game scorer in Madison Evans. With their speed and size, the points in transition might be harder to come by for LCSC.
But if that's how it plays out, the Warriors have another way to get those points back.
LCSC's 3-point shooting ranks 15th in the NAIA at 35.1%. The Barons have been shooting the long ball this season at a 23.8% clip.
The Warriors might get a bit more pushback than expected against a 13th seed. But LCSC this season has emphasized not overlooking any opponent. It also has a noticeable advantage over Brewton-Parker in 3-point shooting — a facet of the Warriors' game that they've utilized well and often this season.
With this being the last year of Stevens and all-conference senior forward Maddie Holm, who suffered a season-ending ACL injury earlier in the year, LCSC is bound to have even more motivation to send its highly-decorated upperclassmen out on top.
"There's four really good teams here in this pod," Orlandi said. "I know all of them are really good. So we got to play great basketball. Warrior basketball. And everybody's got to do their job and take care of business."
Kowatsch can be contacted at 208-848-2268, tkowatsch@lmtribune.com or on Twitter @Teren_Kowatsch.
