Men Prepare for Branson, Despite Tourney Loss

The Cascade Collegiate Conference playoff is made up of seven games where the top eight teams in the conference get to prove who is better , and who deserves a trip to Branson, Missouri for a shot at the National Championship. If a team doesn’t win the conference title, they better win the playoff tournament if they want a chance. Well…most of the time that is.

Luckily, for our Hustlin’ Owls they were ranked eighth in the final NAIA DII men’s basketball poll on February 27. For the men’s side, this pretty much means they get an automatic bid to nationals (called an “at-large bid”), despite what happened in the tournament. This is a good thing for us, because if this wasn’t the case the men wouldn’t be headed to Branson for their sixth straight appearance.

This past week, the men played in two playoff games. The first was a close win against College of Idaho, and the last resulted in the second season loss to Evergreen State. Tech beat off COI with a six point victory, winning 74-68. They lost 93-76 to Evergreen, in a game that wasn’t in our hands for very long at all. The slight win over COI was expected, I guess, considering the previous wins over COI were both close as well. Everyone in town knew the Evergreen game was going to be a good one since we split with them during the season (won one, lost one). They are a tough team and have some good players.

The game against COI was a back and forth the entire first half, but COI’s lead with two and a half minutes left was the last lead they saw all night. The second half was close too, but COI never regained the lead. I would have to say that despite Ryan Fiegi’s 21-point performance, Ryan Beesley is who made the game. He made 5 of 10 three-pointers, one of which was especially crucial.

COI made a layup with 43 seconds left on the clock; OIT was up by one. The next possession, Beesley went down and made a three-pointer with 30 seconds left on the clock. For the opposing team, that is a heartbreaker right there. When you make a layup, your hopes get up and your momentum instantly rises—especially at the end of the game when you’re only down by one. When the other team comes down and hits a three, that momentum is crushed and every player on that court knows that there isn’t much time left. After that, the five OIT players went down and got a defensive stop to seal the win.

The close and exciting game turned into victory, which is always the best! I think the one place where OIT definitely beat COI, and what probably won the game was their rebounding. They out-rebounded COI by 15, which is how many offensive boards we had. Offensive boards mean second-chance shots, and those win games. It was an all-around rebounding effort by every player on the team; nobody stood out in their number of rebounds, they were pretty much evenly distributed.

The next game, the same thing happened, except the other way around. The first part of the first half was back and forth. It was close. OIT took the lead with just under 12 minutes left in the first half, but would never see that again. They tied the score with about six minutes left before the half, but that was also the end of that. Evergreen State took it from there and never relinquished the lead the rest of the night.

It was still going okay for the Owl’s, until about the ten minute mark of the second half. Evergreen finally broke the ten-point spread and from then on never let the Owl’s get closer than 11 points. The Geoducks shot a staggering 60 percent from behind the arc, 48 percent from the field, and 73 from the charity stripe. Oregon Tech didn’t shoot badly from the field or the free-throw line, but made just 20 percent of their shots from the 3-point line, making just 3 of 15 shot attempts.

All other stats were pretty even, except OIT committed six more turnovers—that means six more opportunities for Evergreen to score. That’s at least 12 points right there. Ryan Fiegi lead all scorers with 27 while Jguwon Hogges added 19. Josh Wetzler collected an astounding 18 rebounds, including seven offensive boards.

Evergreen State went on to play a home playoff game against Warner Pacific, losing 87-69 and ending their 2007-2008 season. Warner Pacific will be the third team to represent the CCC at the tournament, along with OIT and Eastern Oregon.

The men will have an inner-squad scrimmage to raise money for Branson on Friday, March 7, at 7 p.m. They are hoping to get a larger crowd than last year, so come join the fun and help support the Hustlin’ Owls in their endeavor to represent Oregon Tech at the National Tournament.