Oh, what a Scenic West Athletic Conference tournament it will be. The North Idaho College men’s basketball team upset sixth-ranked College of Southern Idaho 75-66 Saturday night at Rolly Williams Court in the final regular season game for both teams.
“I think we played really unselfish tonight,” NIC head coach Jared Phay said. “We played everybody, all 12 guys played. I thought everyone did their job. Everyone played very unselfish and that was huge.”
NIC (20-10, 7-8 SWAC) will be the No. 3 seed heading into the SWAC tournament Thursday and will play sixth-seeded Colorado Northwestern Community College (8-21, 2-13 SWAC) at Snow College. Utah State-Eastern also holds a 7-8 conference record but NIC took the season series between the two teams 2-1.
Despite the loss, CSI will receive the No. 1 seed and Salt Lake Community College will be the No. 2 seed in the tournament. Utah State-Eastern will be the fourth seed and Snow College the fifth seed. CSI and Salt Lake will earn first-round byes.
As for the game, Braxton Tucker and Cole Kesler led the Cardinals with 22 and 18 points.
“We talk about that every day at practice (moving the ball well),” Tucker said. “We’re a family so we got to trust each other. Trust is a big thing in our program.”
Tucker shot 10 of 14 from the field and led the team with seven rebounds and three steals. Kesler made six of 11 from the field, including four of eight from 3-point range.
Kesler said “we were a little stagnant” in the first half. “Then, second half, we just started setting back screens, running around, and they were lost. Their help side was off. We just saw good open shots, made some extra passes. We were knocking them down in the second half because we got better looks, open looks.”
The Cardinals shot 50 percent from behind the 3-point arc in the second half as opposed to 27.3 percent in the first.
Phay said it was the best game they’ve played all season, which is a positive for NIC with postseason play in a few days.
“I think we should be up there in the rankings,” NIC sophomore forward Nate Rathbun said. “We just haven’t been putting everything together at the right times, but I think we’re peaking at the right time right now. Going into the regional tournament after this win is going to be huge.”
NIC trailed the Golden Eagles 37-32 at the half, but spread the ball around effectively in the second half.
“We were very team-oriented on offense,” Rathbun said. “We were moving the ball.”
The Cardinals took a 24-23 lead with 6:35 left in the first half after Will Dorsey, who had 10 points, drained a 3-pointer. Jordon King added a 3-pointer about a minute and one-half later to enhance NIC’s lead to seven points.
CSI ended the half on a 14-2 run.
NIC regained the lead 38-37 early in the second half.
Kesler’s 3-pointer with about 13:35 left gave the Cardinals a 47-41 lead and Bryce Leavitt’s steal and layup 20 seconds later opened up an eight-point lead. CSI cut the lead to four points, 52-48.
Kesler answered again with a 3-pointer from the corner, right in front of the Cardinal bench, to bring the Cardinal lead to 61-52, and moments later, Brad Wallace hit a 3-pointer from the wing to balloon the lead to 64-52.
Dallas Anglin, who scored 22 points but fouled out, hit a 3-pointer for the Golden Eagles to cut the lead to 68-61.
Tucker converted a free throw to complete a 3-point play and pushed the lead to 10 points with about 2:15 left in the game. It stopped any CSI comeback hopes.
