Northwest Nazarene, a NCAA Division II school, is led by head coach Dave Daniels, who served as a backup for Steve Nash on the Canadian Olympic basketball team in 2000. His Crusader men’s basketball team came to Memorial Gym on Saturday as significant underdogs but came ready to play.
Philip Vukelich | Argonaut
Junior Connor Hill drives to the basket in the second quarter of the basketball game against Northwest Nazarene on Saturday in Memorial Gym. The Vandals defeated the Crusaders 78-64. Hill led the Vandals with three 3-pointers and 22 points.
“I think it was a fun game for them. When you play a game with nothing to lose and nothing to gain, and I’m sure a lot of those guys dreamed of playing Division I basketball,” Idaho coach Don Verlin said. “You’ve got to give them a lot of credit, they came in and battled.”
This was an exhibition game for NNU, but it was a regular season game for the Vandals. By the way NNU came out and played in the first half, you would have thought it was the other way around, ending the first half only down by six. But the Vandals would eventually extend on that lead, finishing the game with a 78-64 victory.
The story of the first half for Idaho was the junior forward out of Senegal, Bira Seck. He had Idaho’s first eight points from the field.
“After that loss we had at Oklahoma, I felt like my team needed me more, so I came in focused and decided to just go hard, and give all my energy,” Seck said.
He ended the game with 14 points, four rebounds, one assist and two steals.
“Early in the game, it seemed like Seck had all of our points,” Verlin said. “I thought he played with a lot of energy, and he needs to continue to play with that energy and emotion every night.”
The Vandals ended the game with three players in double digit point totals — Beck with 14, Stephen Madison with 16 and Connor Hill led the way with 22.
“If you get Connor wide open looks he’ll make them,” Verlin said. “Tonight we did a better job of driving the lane and kicking it out to him.”
Hill had the best game for the Vandals, hitting 3-8 from beyond the arc, 7-13 from the field and 5-5 from the free-throw line.
“There was some three’s that I really should of hit,” Hill said. “You can’t hit every shot though, I just need to get in the gym and keep practicing.”
The Vandals enjoyed some great performances from their players, but the best player on the floor Saturday night was arguably NNU’s Kevin Rima. Despite seeing a double team most of the night, he still managed to put up 20 points and only missed once, going 6-7 from the floor.
“He’s pretty good isn’t he. We thought he was pretty good and deserved a double team,” Verlin said. “He’s pretty crafty in there, a little undersized but really strong. He’s definitely a Division I player. Why he’s not in at Divison I school, I don’t know, because he’s pretty good down on that block.”
The Vandals, having added 10 new guys to the roster this season, are still finding team chemistry. Verlin said they are still a young team, but they need to clean up the executional errors, or they will continue to struggle.
One of many bright spots for the Vandals though, has been the emergence of point guard, Glen Dean. He didn’t enjoy his best shooting night, going 0-3 from the floor, but he made his impact playing sound defense and getting other players the ball.
“I thought Glen played a really good floor game, he played a ton of minutes and he was really energetic defensively,” Verlin said. “He had five assists and no turnovers, I will take that every night. I challenged Glen this week to get other guys shots, and that’s what he did tonight.”
Dean finished the night with four points, 4-5 from the free-throw line, two rebounds, five assists, zero turnovers and two steals.
The Vandals head to Portland this week to continue their play in the Coaches versus Cancer Classic. They play host school, Portland on Thursday. It will be the first game in their run of three games in three days, where they will also be playing North Texas and Columbia.
Korbin McDonald can be reached at [email protected]