When Thomas More decided to leave the NCAA for the NAIA several years ago, they didn’t change their approach to women’s basketball.
After dominating the NCAA’s Division III with a pair of national championships in the last seven seasons, a Thomas More’s women are headed west again for the second straight year — and this time as the No. 2 overall seed in the 16-team NAIA National Championships.
They were set to overnight in Des Moines then head to Sioux City, Iowa, Wednesday where they fell short in the championship game a year ago after winning their first four NAIA national tournament games. That’s an all-time NAIA tournament winning percentage of .800.
Of the 356 other NAIA programs that have participated in the 40 previous NAIA women’s tournaments, exactly eight have a higher winning percentage than TMU. With that second seed, and a 27-4 record, they obviously know you’re coming, right, TMU Coach Jeff Hans?
“I hope so,” said Hans, who has done everything he could to get the Crestview Hills college to the head of the NAIA class in his 11 years there. “It says a lot about our program, not just this team. But about our alumni. We wouldn’t be here without them.”
The 16-team finals field is a good example of how TMU has approached NAIA national competitiveness.
“Six of the eight teams in the Top 10, we’ve played” over the last two years, Hans said including the team seeded No. 3, Westmont College of Santa Barbara, Calif., that beat TMU 70-61 in last year’s championship game. “Of the 15 other teams here, we’ve played 10 of them.”
The Saints have not played the team they open against, 32-1 Bryan College of Dayton, Tennessee, at 7 p.m. Thursday. And yes, Bryan is named after William Jennings Bryan, the anti-evolution politician-orator-prosecutor in the fictionalized 1926 “Scopes Monkey Trial” in Dayton made famous by the play and movie “Inherit the Wind.”
But the TMU coaches did get to watch the end of No. 9 Bryan’s 90-86 overtime win against fellow Mid-South Conference member Pikeville Saturday. The Saints were also forced into overtime to win 76-72 at Pikeville in the regular season but pounded the Bears 80-43 here, so this will not be a gimme game but TMU is clearly the favorite.
Win that game and TMU could be facing the legendary team out of Texas, Wayland Baptist, whose barnstorming women flew around the country popularizing women’s college basketball as the first women’s team to fly to all its games and now with more than 1,600 wins, Wayland has 300 wins more than any other women’s program to go with its 19 national championships.
“We went down and played them last year,” Hans said. Which gets you to the theme for this year’s Saints team.
“Familiarity,” Hans said as he talks about the two practices – one at a local high school – the Saints were able to schedule on their arrival. “I didn’t know about that last year. It was all new to us.”
Now it’s not.
“But the excitement is still there,” Hans said.
One other difference from a year ago: the depth that TMU can play with. Both Haskell and Grand View coaches, whose teams fell to the Saints last weekend, came away talking about the TMU depth.
“I’d say we have maybe two or three more players than a year ago,” Hans said after two tourney games that saw his bench total 100 points. “There’s no drop-off when we sub.”
That’s what happened Saturday when starting 6-foot-1 center Alexah Chrisman got into foul trouble, in came 6-0 freshman Alex Smith, who fired in 15 points on six of seven shooting including three of three from three-point range.
“Alexah does so much for us, defensively she blocks the rim,” Hans said. “But Alex lets us spread people out on offense.” The same for Summer Secrist, Tylor Clos and Emily Simon, all of whom have different contributions to make. On Saturday, the first five Saints off the bench played a total of 84 minutes against Grand View.
And a starter like sophomore Kelly Brenner, who didn’t play much a year ago, has worked her way onto the court this year.
Both opponents last weekend said how difficult it was to prepare for all the players the Saints can throw at you or handle the way that wears you down in a game.
“Yeah, I think so,” Hans agreed. “Bryan hasn’t seen anyone like us.”
Although that works both ways in a national tournament.
“Westmont is definitely different from anyone we play,” he said of the defending champs from California. “They all are.”
Another advantage is coming from the Mid-South Conference, Hans said. Conference members Campbellsville, No. 5 in the nation, along with Bethel (Tennessee), the lone unranked team to make it to Sioux City, are both here. TMU is 4-0 against those two, both in the opposite bracket.
The 10,000-seat Tyson Events Center “is a great place to play,” Hans said. And a familiar place for the Saints now.
