Your future, our focus
Region IX North regular-season champions.
Region IX Tournament hosts.
NJCAA Division I basketball’s 15thranked team.
Add that all together and what do you get?
“We’re not that good yet,” Northwest College sophomore EJ Hubbard said.
Wait, what?
I’m all for humility and keeping things in perspective, but I’m also for calling it like it is: The Northwest College men’s basketball team is very good; they may even be great.
But Hubbard isn’t satisfied. And sure, I’m all for that, too. But at 27-4, NWC is at least a little good. If they’re not, what’s it going to take, EJ?
“Winning the region tournament, then we’ll be OK,” he explained. “And if we win nationals, then we’ll be good.”
OK, so Hubbard has goals. And apparently, he and the rest of the Trappers haven’t reached the bar they set for themselves in November. If you’re any other team but Northwest College, that could be bad news for you.
“We can’t just settle for being good,” NWC head coach Brian Erickson said. “We go out and we recruit ... and I felt like we got better ... and I’m going ‘All right, yeah, we’re going to compete.’ Well you know what, Gillette just went and got better ... Casper got better, Sheridan got better, Miles got better, Western and Central got better; every team in our region got better from last year.”
OK, well, the Trappers beat all of those teams this year. So, the Trappers are good, right?
“Don’t be OK with being good, let’s go be great,” Erickson said, paraphrasing a speech he gave to his team earlier in the season. “I told them ‘Don’t be good ... we’re good right now, we’re good ... I want to be great.’”
Luckily for Erickson, his team does, too. It’s why starters Daryle Morgan, William “Nicky” Desilien and Chris Boucher transfered to Northwest in the summer. It’s why Morgan has accepted the fact that being the high point man on his team isn’t as important as helping his team win.
“I accept my role. I know I’m not the leading scorer, but everybody scores so it doesn’t really matter. It can be anybody’s night if they’re on,” he said. “It’s fun when we’re winning. It’s not all about numbers.”
It’s why Boucher and Desilien didn’t accept being an afterthought at New Mexico Junior College, and instead came to Powell, where they strapped the Trappers on their backs — on a journey to...
“Greatness,” said Desilien, who averages nearly 21 points and five assists for NWC. “Chris and I both wanted more. And now, the only thing I would change if I could is that I’d have come here last year, and I would’ve brought Chris with me.”
Retrospect aside, the pair has done its part this season. Desilien and Boucher (22 points, 11 rebounds, 4 blocks) are both drawing Division I interest, and have caught firing during their team’s current 14-game winning streak. But that’s not point — for either of them.
“This team, they made me,” Boucher said. “Without them I wouldn’t be that good. I feel like I owe them something; we have to go to the national championship.”
His best friend concurs.
“It’s not the Nicky show or the Chris show — it’s the Trapper show,” Desilien said earlier this season. “We have a lot of guys that do different things; everybody does a different part, and when you put that together it makes a whole team; and that’s what makes us great as a team.”
Ah, so finally someone is buying in.
“Our preseason was rough, but we managed to pull it out and we’re decent, I guess,” Desilien continued.
Oh. Well, maybe it’s time to accept that there’s a certain charm in the fact this team knows it’s beatable — four times, to be exact — and that being good (or great) right now, won’t feel as good as knowing you were the greatest on March 21.
“I think we’re getting there,” Erickson said. “Every year, every team and its coach has the goals of ‘We’re going to win the region and we’re going to win the national tournament,’ but only one team ever does that.”
Northwest College is trying to be that team — the greatest team — if only for one season.
“We’re trying to win,” Hubbard said. “We’re all trying to get to that goal so we can all be apart of it and tell our kids when we get older ‘Yeah, I was a part of that team. That was me.’”