Goood afternoon. Let’s get stoked about tonight’s game by talking about NNU dominating “#1” (keyword: in quotation marks) Colorado-Mesa!

Disclaimer: We’re not super familiar with Colorado-Mesa specifically, but we are a number fiend and analysis is basically the entire point of why we write this blog. We also know that technically Colorado-Mesa isn’t hyphenated, but… That’s stylistically incorrect in our opinion, so the school is getting hyphenated on this blog and the Mavs are gonna like it.

#5 NNU 74 vs. #1 Colorado-Mesa 54

While it’s great and all that NNU won by 20, the big question is: What does it mean? What do the numbers imply? And so that’s what we’re going to talk about right now. Not our usual GNAC blog generic highlights, but… What can we glean from this loss? Because you don’t get a big loss like this after otherwise being 21-1 without oddness.

The score pretty much tells the tale: NNU a lot more, CMU a lot less. Not super complicated. Maybe kind of a head scratcher because the CMU coach was making Aaron Landon-style decisions, and so… Let’s actually go over the CMU numbers first:

Maverick analysis: 

Christopher Speller: 23 minutes, 0-4, a smattering of field stats..
Mac Riniker: 21 minutes, 2-5 from the field, four boards, two blocks.
David Rico: 14 minutes, 0-2 from the field.
Georgie Dancer: 31 minutes, 2-6, five boards, four turnovers.
Ethan Menzies: 23 minutes, 3-9, 12 boards, three blocks, four turnovers, zero fouls.
Reece Johnson: 27 minutes, 0-5, a handful of field stats.
Trevor Baskin: 15 minutes, 6-10, a smattering of field stats, 13 points.
Jared Small: 24 minutes, 6-11, a smattering of field stats, 17 points.

The big question is: What the heck is up with the minutes distribution? These guys have the discipline of Seattle Pacific with the minutes distribution of Saint Martin’s.

As we were watching, Trevor Baskin completely passed the eye test, so… Why’d he only see 15 minutes? Ethan Menzies? It would be one thing if he was in foul trouble but 12 boards in 23 minutes? What’s the deal here? And then all of the guys that got pulled for being “cold” we’re pretty neurotic about shooting numbers, but… This is a little strict even for our taste.

So many guys could have been distributed to and yet it seems like all of the best guys either saw very few minutes or were never given a chance. Yeah, we start raising our eyebrows at 0-5 and 0-4, but 0-2? Why was David Rico pulled? Why was Trevor Baskin so restricted? Why was Ethan Menzies so restricted? Yeah 3-9 isn’t great, but… What on earth was Mike Degeorge doing? That’s all we want to know. Because either the record was complete BS and the RMAC is a straight-up mess, or coaching interference lost the Mavericks this game. Could go either way.

Analyzing the Nighthawks…

The thing is, while Zeke Alley played well and it was good to see George Reidy bounce back, none of these numbers were insane. This was a pretty typical game for the Nighthawks. They weren’t out of their minds. These were the same types of numbers put up in their win against CWU and their losses against SPU.

Nighthawk highlights: Zeke Alley scored 30 points in just 26 minutes including a full house of field stats; Sam Roth had seven boards; George Reidy bounced back and had 17 points; Gabe Murphy had six boards; and off the bench Andrew Ferrin had four boards.

This wasn’t a great game for the Nighthawks by any means. Like yeah 30 points is cool, but kind of moot when basically two guys are scoring all of the points. James Nelson was quiet. Sam Roth was better than he’s been this year, but we wouldn’t necessarily call it a good performance. Acceptable at best. Gabe Murphy played 19 minutes, woooo. These numbers don’t spell a blow-out. At all.

The numbers spell that something really weird was going on with CMU and NNU got lucky. They could have just as easily lost this game. There wasn’t a particular rhyme or reason why they won it. While yeah, the Nighthawks employed some good defense… There’s no way it was as good as CMU made it look.

This game was a straight-up head scratcher and we have no idea what to expect going into the game against CO Mines because… Their game against Biola had almost no defense. Hard to say what it’ll be. The good news is that the Nighthawks could absolutely blow-out the Orediggers. The bad news is, they also just as easily get blown-out.

We have no idea what any of this means, but we’ll find out in an hour!

Watch the game here.

Be safe, have fun, mask on, and go Nighthawks!!

Goood morning. What a game last night, and so… Let’s jump right in:

#5 NNU 85 vs. #4 PLNU 73

Don’t let the score fool you; it wasn’t that close. NNU was in control the whole way. PLNU had some success reeling the Nighthawks back in, but never enough. It honestly was just seemingly a matter of tenacity; NNU was there to play and fight and scrap, and PLNU just wasn’t. There was a lot of apathy on display, which was kind of a head scratcher. Like, yeah you beat this team by 30 early in the year, but this is March Madness, baby!

Nighthawk highlights: Kobe Tereshima had six boards and four assists; ZEKE ALLEY was on fire and had 20 points and four assists, while shooting well from the field and going 10-10 from the line; SAM ROTH finally had a good game and finished with 18 points on good shooting; and Gabe Murphy played a “whopping” 19 minutes and had 12 points and seven boards. Off the bench Andrew Ferrin had five points; and James Nelson had seven points and six boards.

PLNU highlights: Kaden Andereson had 18 points, eight boards, and five fouls; Brock Mackenzie had 20 points and seven boards; Noah Stapes had seven boards; and off the bench Josh Caston had 17 points on good shooting and while going 8-8 from the charity stripe.

And there it is: There’s the answer. We’ve said it all year: You get to March and most teams go five deep, but the teams that go six deep are the teams that make noise. James Nelson, take a bow; that was on you, kid! You did it. We expect starters to do their jobs and do them well, but how does the sixth man perform? Sterling Somers lost PLNU the national title a couple of years ago, while James Nelson just won the Nighthawks their first round game.

Now, admittedly, we do see this win as having an asterisk; the Nighthawks didn’t win their pod, they likely wouldn’t have received a bid in a normal year, we still don’t think they pass the eye-test, but hey! They won when it matters, and now have earned the right to take on Colorado Mesa.

We considered writing about the Biola/FPU game, but… That’s another asterisky game. The players were feisty and it was really entertaining, but let’s be real here: FPU would have never made it in a normal year.

Our instinct is that the Colorado schools are going to slaughter both NNU and Biola, but… Games aren’t played until they’re played. Can Sam Roth make magic two nights in a row? Can George Reidy bounce back? Can Gabe Murphy play another 19 minutes?

We’ll see tonight at 6:30 pacific, 7:30 mountain. Game link here.

Be safe, have fun, masks on, and go GNAC!

It is a weird year, but we are admittedly looking forward to watching the Regional.

As noted in a prior post: the West Region this year includes the RMAC, and as such is being hosted by #2 Colorado School of Mines.

Colorado-Mines is located in Golden, CO. Golden, Colorado is a suburb of Denver.

The bracket is as follows:

Six schools with two play-in games, which makes sense.

Colorado-Mesa is hosting the women’s tournament, hence why the #2 Colorado-Mines is hosting ours.

For those (like us) wondering why the RMAC only got two bids and FPU eked their way into a bid: It’s because the RMAC had two distinctly top teams; Mesa is 21-1 overall, Mines is 16-2, and then the next best school was 9-8.

It also appears that Hawaii-Hilo opted out; they played enough games and Hilo’s record supports them receiving a bid, but 14 hours of flying and a two week quarantine, all the while risking getting a deadly disease to play a two-hour basketball game… The Vulcans wisely said “no thanks.”

Biola is the winner of the SoCal pod with a record of 9-2, playing two more games than runner-up Point Loma, who went 7-2. More interestingly, Point Loma is 8-2 overall.

Allegedly what kept Seattle Pacific out of the tournament was the failure to play 11 division II games, and yet… There PLNU is, only having played 10. The Sea Lions seemingly played one extra game against Biola, and then additionally applied for a waiver and got it.

We honestly have zero problem with SPU not “making” the tournament; we know they won the GNAC pod, we know they have the resume to attend, and we also know that attending is a risk we’d rather they not take. We’re proud to be an alum of an institution that follows the science and takes the health of their student athletes seriously, even when it’s not necessarily the “popular” choice.

As for bracket predictions:

#4 PLNU over #5 NNU.

Nazarene vs. Nazarene. The two teams met early; PLNU won by 30. While it’s been a while, SPU and PLNU usually compare favorably and SPU recently beat NNU by 30, so… While March ups the ante and we wouldn’t be surprised if the Nighthawks kept it within 10, we also wouldn’t be surprised to see another blow-out.

#3 Biola over #6 FPU.

Usually that would have already happened by this point, but FPU was playing in what was likely the weakest pod in the country. While the SoCal pod was weird (CU-I was seriously atrocious, APU wasn’t up to their usual standard) we still have no doubt it was better than the NorCal pod.

We were going to make predictions for round II, but ultimately figured we should wait until the games are actually played, chickens and hatching and all of that.

Games start at 5pm and will be broadcast here.

Be safe, have fun, masks on, and go GNAC!

Apparently it just might be a thing. We haven’t really been paying attention to the Region as a whole because pre-season was optional (only NNU played it) and post-season seems like a bad idea, but… Most of the NCAA isn’t on the west coast, so pandemic-prolonging, bad ideas are just fine with them.

The basic thing to know about the West Region this year is that the Pac-West and GNAC has done things in pods, but the West Region also now includes the RMAC, which has full participation with the exception of New Mexico Highlands. We’re assuming that because the CCAA isn’t playing this year, they shoved the RMAC with us, which is fine, but the reality is it’s more of they shoved us with the RMAC. The RMAC has more schools playing than the GNAC and Pac-West combined.

The Feb. 21st Regional List of teams being considered, in alphabetical order:

Adams State
Biola
Colorado Mesa
Colorado Mines
Fresno Pacific
Hawaii Hilo
Northwest Nazarene
Point Loma

It factors in every D2 game played on a team’s schedule, and essentially makes enough sense except for that whole giant discrepancy thing where NNU was the only GNAC school to play non-con, Fresno Pacific is on the list at all because they’re the “best” in their pod, and the RMAC played a regular conference schedule.

Naturally the RMAC arguably should dominate the bid process, but we’ll make a different argument about the Regional hosting site later.

The list above includes NNU, but doesn’t factor in their most recent games against Seattle Pacific, and as such we’re wondering if NNU is listed simply because they were leading the GNAC pod, but now that SPU has beat them, if SPU will take the spot.

The jist of “pod” play:

The Pac-West has the Hawaii schools (HPU, Hilo, and Chaminade) in a pod, the NorCal schools (Art U., Dominican, and FPU) in a pod, and the SoCal schools (Biola, CU-I, APU, and PLNU) in a pod. The GNAC initially had the private school pod and then added in CWU halfway through, which actually worked perfectly; wish we’d had the Wildcats the whole time. Spartin vs. Cenazar, all of the schools except NNU in a cluster. SMU and NNU played a home-and-home, while both CWU and SPU avoided going to Nampa.

It could have made things complicated for figuring out the “conference” finish, but because NNU and SPU are the top two, their schedules are largely even, minus non-con. Now, should non-con be counted as it comes to bid selection for post-season? Prior to this weekend we would have said “yes,” but NNU just went 0-2 against the Falcons and it wasn’t close.

Bid selection is a lot about “what have you done for me lately?” and NNU’s been at full strength all year, but has an early blow-out loss to PLNU and now two big recent losses to Seattle Pacific, when the Seattle Pacific team isn’t at full strength, and hasn’t been at full strength all season. We’re not sure why no one is talking about the fact that SPU is still missing their two all conference post players in Filip Fullerton and Shaw Anderson, and now is missing their all-conference level post player in Kelton Samore, but… It matters. NNU at full strength got blown-out by an SPU team starting the worst Big on their roster -not to say that Mehdi isn’t good, but… What results would most schools be getting if their only true Big was in reality the 11th guy on their depth chart?

And so in discussing potential Regionals…

The big question is: Who would you rather play in a loser-out game? On the one hand, the Falcons can be atrocious. But on the other hand… As atrociously as they sometimes play, they often still win those games. You can grind it out and usually get a win against the Nighthawks on any given night, but the Falcons are way more of a toss-up.

If autobids end up being a thing, we assume that it may end up that each pod winner gets an autobid and then the RMAC gets four teams, which would be very reasonable this season. We might veer on the side that the Hawaii schools and the NorCal schools shouldn’t get a bid because of past history in regard to a lack of depth. The thing with the SoCal pod and the GNAC pod is that both contain teams that made the tournament last year and consistently make the Regional on a regular basis. Not the case with Hawaii and NorCal, but it’s a weird year and so it would be acceptable to overlook that fact. You could also go with the idea that the RMAC gets three teams, the pod winners qualify, and then there’s one “at large” berth, which who knows? So many variabilities on that one.

If the GNAC were to get an autobid for the winner of the pod, what would that look like?

Current standings:

• SPU is 6-1, with the potential to finish at 7-1 or 6-2.
• NNU is 4-2 with the potential to finish at 6-2 or 4-4.

Regardless, SPU wins the tiebreaker.

It would be interesting if CWU had come in and been lights out; we would definitely argue on their behalf for still earning the autobid or an at-large bid, had they come in and gone 6-0.

That said: NNU is still ranked higher than SPU, so it’s very possible that despite having the best record of the GNAC pod, NNU gets selected and SPU doesn’t.

Would the Falcons especially care? 50/50.

Obviously the guys want to play, but the thing is: we’re so close to getting to go back to normal. Every person 18+ will be eligible for the vaccine by the end of May, which means hopefully the vast, vast majority will have gotten it by the end of June.

Is it worth it to risk getting on a flight and getting COVID now? After we’ve adhered to the restrictions (some of the strictest in the country) for this long? Not only that, but long COVID is scary, and on the whole COVID can be devastating to a person’s reproductive system, even if the case of COVID wasn’t particularly severe.

For a school like SPU that values family life so highly, why on earth would they be willing to risk it? We don’t think they would be, nor should they be -and yes, we’re giving NNU some serious side-eye for being willing to needlessly risk their players reproductive capabilities over basketball.

We love basketball. We love sports. Personally, we’ve been patiently waiting for 15 years to be able to modify our body so we can run like a normal human, but unfortunately doing so would mean our nutritional capabilities would be no more. As such, we continue waiting. It’s only another 10 years. We’ve actively been opting into the wait since we were 15-years-old, knowing it would be 25 years; these guys could have avoided flights for one season, and maybe more importantly: the department and coaching staff should have chosen to avoid flights for one season, rather than blatantly risking the fertility of their players.

Who would the Regional host be?

While common sense says it would be an RMAC school, we’re going to make the argument that regardless as to whether SPU does or does not make the tournament, the Falcons should host.

Why should Seattle Pacific host the tournament?

1. SeaTac is the most convenient airport.
2. Seattle is the most compliant metro as it comes to mask wearing, thus it’s the safest location.
3. Seattle Pacific already hosted a tournament in the early days of COVID and did a really good job with it.
4. RBP is a nice facility, straight-up.
5. SPU’s restrictions are ridiculously tight, which makes things safer for all of the players and coaches involved.

That said: we doubt SPU would be tapped to host simply because the rest of the country thinks our restrictions are insane, when in reality our restrictions didn’t go nearly far enough, but… Hopefully it’s moot in a few months anyway.

All to say in this seriously long post… There’s a lot of wait and see and nothing is set in stone, this is mostly just logistics mixed with some fun speculation.

Final regular season games are this weekend.

Be safe, have fun, masks on, and go GNAC!

NNU supposedly came into these games ranked 13th, and yet…

For the last six+ years, rankings on the west coast have been completely ridiculous and moot, so they’re not something we really pay attention to because every time we do, we’re like “No, these aren’t right, these are ridiculous,” and then are promptly proven correct.

Case in point: this game.

Not even sure why they’re bothering to do rankings this year, but okay, NNU was “ranked” 13th, ahead of a Point Loma team that absolutely destroyed them, and… Now they just dropped two games to a team that’s missing all of their bigs and on any given night is 50/50 amazing or 50/50 trash. Ooookay. A 13th ranked team should be able to beat that team, regardless. Except once again: West coast D2 rankings are nothing but a raging case of obstinance.

Game #1

NNU 79 @ SPU 89

Don’t let the score fool you; the Falcons were absolutely clobbering the Nighthawks until the last three minutes when the game was largely beyond hope. While we’re very irritated at the Falcons for letting the score look respectable, they got it done and it is what it is.

Nighthawk highlights: Kobe Tereshima had six boards; Zeke Alley had 19 points while going 7-8 from the line; and George Reidy had 13 points. Off the bench Ryan Bergersen had six points; Brandon Recek had seven points; and James Nelson had seven points and five boards.

Falcon highlights: Zack Paulsen had 14 points; Sharif Khan had 12 points and five boards among a full house of stats; Harry Cavell had five boards; Divant’e Moffitt was well contained and had seven assists; and Mehdi El Mardi had 13 points and five boards. Off the bench SYON BLACKMON had 18 points; Clayton Whitman had five points; and Jacob Medjo had eight points.

Interestingly enough, the Nighthawks killed the rebounding game, grabbing 38 to the Falcons mere 26, and it was likely a big reason they were able to creep back in at the end. We’re not sure how to feel about this game other than consternated by how unpredictable this SPU team is. On paper, it’s a no-brainer that SPU is better than NNU, despite the Falcons missing all of their regular bigs and NNU’s supposed ranking, but life is more comfortable when the “experts” know more than we do. We wanted to believe that NNU was truly legit, but really… Basketball on the west coast is a mess.

Game #2

NNU 68 @ SPU 83

Going in, it seemed like either SPU was going to roll once again, or NNU would come back and make a huge statement, maybe not winning a blow-out, but leaving no doubt that the prior game was a fluke. It was not. The Falcons came back with some much-needed, classic SPU discipline, and this game was comfortable -never as big of a blow-out, but also never in doubt.

Nighthawk highlights: Zeke Alley had five boards and 21 points whilst shooting well and going 7-8 from the charity stripe; George Reidy had 16 points and six boards; Gabe Murphy had six boards; and off the bench James Nelson had eight points and five fouls.

Falcon highlights: Sharif Khan had 18 points; Harry Cavell had 16 points and five boards; Divant’e Moffitt had 20 points; and Mehdi El Mardi miraculously had 10 boards. Off the bench Clayton Whitman had four points; and Jacob Medjo had eight points.

Much tighter rotation from the Falcons, we’re not the most pleased with this games, there’s still a lot of work to be done and a lot to fix, but… This win feels like a miracle for them. We really thought that they would come back more apathetic than ever and NNU would beat them, but… Wondering how much NNU sicced their own monster; had NNU just accepted the blow-out in the prior game, it seems like SPU likely would have come out flat and the Nighthawks would have won this one, but go figure.

We haven’t really been paying attention to anything outside of the GNAC, but the SPU announcer noted that Regional rankings had gone up, and we were like “wait, what? They want to have a tournament? WHAAAT?” and so we’ll discuss that at some point this week.

There are still more games to be played; NNU takes on CWU, and then SMU heads up to SPU, with potential implications on the line, maybe? Sort of? To be discussed. We’ll probably do a series of short posts just to keep everything separated because like the entirety of the last year: it’s a mess.

Congrats to both teams on getting to play actual basketball.

Be safe, have fun, masks on, and go GNAC!

It’s funny, we almost never listen to CWU games because we’re either at Nicholson or actively at a different game, but their announcers are hysterical and surprisingly decently balanced. We really enjoyed listening to them.

These games were interesting because when SPU played Whitworth and the Falcons were coming in cold while the Pirates had played a bunch of games, we felt like SPU was at a huge disadvantage because despite having film of Whitworth, the Pirates had already gelled while the Falcons hadn’t gotten the chance, and that’s how the games played out; Whitworth looked great and SPU looked like a mess.

This time… We suspected CWU would have the advantage because they both returned a lot of key pieces and they were able to watch a ton of film of SPU, while the Falcons had no film on the Wildcats. Sure enough, that proved true, the Falcons were once again a mess, especially the first night.

Game #1

SPU 86 @ CWU 82

Let’s be real here: SPU struggled big time. It was clear that CWU was well studied, the Falcons looked discombobulated, and we started seeing a lot of the same mistakes that they made in the first SMU game. Still, like that game at SMU, they managed to course correct, somehow. Still confused on how they won, but go figure.

Falcon highlights: Zack Paulsen had 10 points; Sharif Khan had 12 points; Harry Cavell had seven boards; and Divant’e Moffitt had 18 points and five boards whilst going a whopping 10-10 from the line. Off the bench Syon Blackmon made noise with 11 points; Clayton Whitman had five points; and Kelton Samore had eight points.

Wildcat highlights: DAVID THOMPSON came out with a bang and had 29 points on solid shooting; Matt Poquette is no longer a slumping sophomore and had 20 points and five boards among a full house of stats; and Marqus Gilson had nine points and five boards among a flawless full house of stats. Off the bench Amari Stafford had seven points; and Micah Pollard had six points.

Once again: we’re still not sure how SPU got out of this game, but nicely done, Birdies.

Game #2

CWU 74 @ SPU 92

This time, the Falcons knew who they were up against in a big way because… CWU forgot their uniforms and ended up wearing an old set of SPU jerseys. Conspiracy theory: the Wildcats forgot their uniforms on purpose. They have a bunch of guys that REAAAALLY wanted to play for SPU, and this was the only way they would ever get to “be” Falcons, so… Rinta was just like “ah, heck, we’ll just say we forgot our own, okay, dream achieved, congrats guys, you “play” for Seattle Pacific, your jerseys even say so.”

We jest and poke because we love, and because we are admittedly an SPU alum with five years worth of CWU season tickets and zero regrets. We love our CWU tickets and miss all of you wascally Wildcats like crazy ❤ Can’t wait to drink wine with Winegar once again.

Wildcat highlights: David Thompson came back down to earth but still had 20 points and five fouls; Xavier Smith had 19 points and five boards; Matt Poquette had 10 points and four boards; and Marqus Gilson had 10 points and seven boards. Off the bench CJ Hyder had five points; and Micah Pollard had four points and three boards.

Falcon highlights: Zack Paulsen had seven boards among a full house of stats; Harry Cavell bounced back and had 18 points and eight boards; Divant’e Moffitt had nine points and eight boards; and Mehdi El Mardi had 14 points in just 13 minutes. Off the bench Syon Blackmon continues to impress, this time with 10 points while going 5-5 from the line; and Kelton Samore made a big statement with 18 points and four boards.

It seems like the first night the Falcons were kind of terrified and discombobulated, whereas the second game they were like “Wait a second, this is the team that we beat meanwhile never going above 80% last year; we can do this, just play as a team.” And that was that. Good to see them bounce back. They have a tall order taking on the Nighthawks of Northwest Nazarene next week.

Congrats to all the guys on hard games well-fought. Congrats to CWU on actually getting to play a few games. Some is better than none, and the Wildcats are definitely pursuing their games safely.

Tonight’s games start soon…

Be safe, have fun, masks on, and go GNAC!