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Trapper Men Hope Rugged Schedule Has Them Ready To Go In Region IX
Tournament basketball, it is said, is best described as a war every night. For the Northwest College Trappers, that might simply translate into business as usual.
For the last two months, the Trappers, 22-8 overall, have faced an almost-nightly barrage of quality competition while jockeying for position in a talent-packed Region IX North division. That division produced a whopping six 20-game winners, five of whom were either ranked in or received votes for the national top 20 poll at some point during the season.
“Given the strength of the teams in the North, I think we’ve played a very good schedule, and that’s really important going into the regional tournament,” said Trapper head coach Andy Ward. “We’ve really been tested. The teams in the North, with that 16-game schedule against each other, have not had an easy time.”
For the Trappers’ coach, that hopefully translates into a tournament-prepared team this Saturday night when Northwest faces North Platte (17-13) in the opening round of Region IX action at Scottsbluff, Neb. The two teams did not meet during the regular season, but Ward wasted little time identifying one of the keys to the first-round tournament game.
“They have the region’s leading scorer in Nick Tomsick,” said Ward. “That always gets your attention as a coach when you see something like that.”
Tomsick, a 6-1 sophomore out of Scottsdale, Ariz., has averaged 22.2 points per contest for the Knights this season. Ben Wilson, a 6-5 freshman from Australia, is the only other North Platte player to average in double figures. Wilson provides 10 points per night for NPCC.
“We’ll need to do a good job on Tomsick,” said Ward. “They’re patient with the basketball on offense and run a lot of motion offense, so we’re going to have to deal with lots of screens and try to do a good job on their leading scorer.”
Ward’s crew is hardly without firepower of its own. Chris Hansen ranks among the region’s scoring leaders with an average of 18.6 points per game. Hansen has knocked down 93 3-point buckets this season while also lighting it up with 87.4 percent accuracy at the charity stripe.
Freshman Jeffrey Solarin adds almost a double-double nightly with 15.4 points and nine rebounds per contest. Another freshman, Junior Coleman, brings in 12.9 points per game for Northwest College.
All those freshmen, however, leads to one of the Trappers’ biggest question marks entering the Region IX tournament. How will a team with only two sophomores react in its first regional tournament experience?
“It’s the first game of the tournament and everyone is going to have butterflies. Hopefully we can get rid of ours fairly quickly,” Ward said. “We’ve been trying to prepare the kids for this moment all season. We’ll keep stressing that your mindset has to be in the moment, focusing on your individual responsibilities on offense, on defense, and if you do that, the outcome will take care of itself.”
On the floor, the Trappers will try to exploit what Ward perceives to be an advantage in the paint. North Platte’s roster does not feature a player standing taller than 6-6.
“Hopefully we can put that to use,” said Ward. “They’re a team that I think we really need to probe the inside against, whether that’s by feeding the ball into our post players or attacking them off the dribble. We need to be attacking them in the paint.”
The Trappers’ head coach also feels his squad’s overall depth could factor into the game’s outcome.
“We’re as healthy as we’ve been,” Ward said. “I think the overall depth of our team is a positive for us.”
While the Trappers aren’t looking beyond the first round, it is important to note that a win on Saturday simply advances the victor one round deeper into what appears to be a highly competitive regional tournament.
“Any team that wins the championship this year will have to be doing some things right defensively,” said Ward. “Because you’re going to have to play good defense night in and night out. Rebounding will be a key, and the eventual champion will have to get on fire for a few nights in a row at the offensive end. For us, we have to shoot the ball well if we’re going to win it.”
Northwest College and North Platte meet in the final first-round game of the tournament. The contest is expected to tip off at 8 p.m., Saturday. The winner of that game will face the winner of Friday’s game featuring tournament host Western Nebraska and Northeast Nebraska in one of four Sunday quarterfinal games.
The Region IX men’s tournament runs through Tuesday with the winner advancing to the NJCAA national basketball tournament later this month.