For the first time since 2016, two of the NAIA Basketball Championship semifinalists – one each on both the men’s and women’s sides – will be from one school. That school is Thomas More University.
The Saints men and women join “final four” teams from Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Iowa, and Arizona in Kansas City, Monday at 8 p.m. for the men against Talladega College, and in Sioux City, Iowa, at 9 p.m. for the women against Central Methodist of Missouri.
Although they can’t call it that – you know, the “Final Four.” The NCAA has a trademark on “Final Four,” so the NAIA folks have to call their tournament when it gets to the semifinals, the “Fab Four.” Not that this tournament doesn’t have a heck of a pedigree.
It was started for small and mid-size colleges 83 years ago by none other than Dr. James Naismith, who Kentucky fans might know, helped tutor a young basketball player by the name of Adolph Rupp at the University of Kansas. One other thing about Dr. Naismith: He invented the game of basketball.
And for Thomas More, with the women returning to the Fab Four a second straight year and the men following in their footsteps this time around, it’s a way of getting their name out there with rosters almost exclusively from an extended Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky/Southwestern Indiana.
Although as TMU women’s coach Jeff Hans says, if they don’t remember them from a year ago, “We still have to tell them we’re from Northern Kentucky.”
There’s also this: With TMU leaving the NAIA for the NCAA’s Division II after next year, it’s something of a hello-goodbye deal with the TMU folks hoping there are no hard feelings.
The last team to double-dip in the NAIA’s Fab Four was MidAmerica Nazarene six years ago. And their women did win it all.
“I thought we could play with anybody,” TMU men’s coach Justin Ray says, “but that Oklahoma Wesleyan team we just beat was the best team we’ve played. That was really a challenge for us.”
At this point in any national tournament, pretty much everybody can play, both coaches say. Something else they each said of these tournaments in towns 280 miles apart along the Missouri River.
Both opponents Monday night will be the tallest teams they’ve faced, the TMU coaches say. A 31-5 Talladega team goes 6-10, 6-9 and 6-8 along the front line. Central Methodist, also 31-5, will have 6-4, 6-3, and 6-1 players on the court at the same time.
And while the TMU women are healthy and ready to go with a lineup that often plays 10 and as it did the other night in beating Rocky Mountain of Montana by two and got 36 of their 60 points off the bench, the men are a different story.
Reid Jolly, who scored TMU’s first seven points against Oklahoma Wesleyan, injured his meniscus and is doubtful Monday. The good news is that sophomore Noah Pack, 6-9 to Jolly’s 6-5, has been a starter and is something of a super-sub who can shoot it and rebound it.
The problem there is that takes a big bite out of TMU’s depth. “We finished the Oklahoma Wesleyan game (winning by three) with two 18-year-old freshmen (Wyatt Vieth, out of St. Henry and Casey George, Pickerington, Ohio) against a team that used a “five-in, five-out” substitution pattern.
Then there’s this: Talladega is the top defensive team in the nation holding opponents to right at 58 points a game and is very tough on three-point shooters. TMU is one of the better scoring teams in the nation at right under 80 points a game and a top-four three-point-shooting team.
It’ll be a battle of strength-against strength against a Talladega team that split with the Stillman team the Saints beat to advance to Kansas City. “They average eight steals a game,” Ray says, “yet as explosive as they can be, they’re also patient and disciplined on offense.”
As for Central Methodist, the recruiting philosophy of the Fayette, Mo. school, couldn’t be more different from TMU’s. Twelve of its players are transfers, four from Division I. Three players are from California. One from Ontario and another from Minsk, Belarus.
“We don’t adjust a lot what we do,” said Hans who was up late getting the scouting report finished. “But we have to try to neutralize their size and not let them rebound the basketball, something they do so well.”
As for the TMU men, they haven’t shown Ray something he didn’t know about this team, “just re-affirmed it.”
One thing they re-affirmed for him is that Ryan Batte is pretty darn good. The 6-6 junior and Mid-South Conference MVP put the Saints on his back with his 23-point, 11-rebound performance against an Oklahoma Wesleyan team that couldn’t find someone to match up with him since he can start the offense outside, hit the three, post up and power it inside, and now, hit the pull-up mid-range jumper.
“He’s such a matchup problem for teams,” Ray said. “He made it happen for us. They just couldn’t deal with him.”
TMU FOOTNOTED: There will be a watch party Monday night for Saints fans of both teams at Dickmann’s Sports Café, 479 Orphanage Road, Fort Wright. Must be 21.
MONDAY’S SCHEDULE:
*** 8 p.m.: TMU Men (31-4) vs. Talladega (Ala.) (31-5), Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City
*** 9 p.m.: TMU Women (30-4) vs. Central Methodist (Mo.) (31-5), Tyson Events Center, Sioux City, Iowa
Photo via Thomas More Athletics