As expected, host Thomas More’s two top-seeded teams will play another day in the NAIA Men’s and Women’s first-round regional basketball tournaments Saturday for the right to move on to the 16-team national finals next week in Kansas City and Sioux City, Iowa, respectively.
But while the No. 3 nationally ranked women, as expected, had a walkover in Crestview Hills Friday, the No. 5 men had to play almost all the way to the wire against a much-tougher-than-their-15th-seed Grand View (Iowa) team.
THOMAS MORE MEN 81, GRAND VIEW (IOWA) 74
“If that’s a 15th seed . . . “ Thomas More Coach Justin Ray did not finish that thought. But you could tell what he was thinking. “At this point, everybody’s good. It doesn’t matter if you’re a two-seed or a 15-seed..”
Grand View, finishing up at 17-10, would like to think they were pretty good. “Credit Thomas More, they’re the No. 5 team in the country,” said Ryan Miller, the tough-driving 5-foot-11 senior guard who led Grand View with 21 points, right at his average, mostly on drives to the basket. “It’s an honor coming here. We’re happy with the way we played.”
The way Grand View played was to jump out early, 20-14, after 8:45 and force the Saints to play catch-up. Which thanks to a strong effort by 6-5 TMU sophomore Reid Jolly’s 13 first-half points, the Saints managed to do, inching ahead 43-40 in a fast-paced first half.
“I knew we’d keep scoring,” Ray said. “We needed to get some defensive stops.”
With Jacob Jones trying his hand at Miller, TMU got some. “He’s the fastest guy I’ve played against in my career,” Miller said of the 5-9 freshman from Jeffersonville, Ind.
And then Ryan Batte started to play like Ryan Batte, after getting doubled and even triple-teamed at times early. “It was more about getting my other guys involved,” he said after being limited to just two shots in the first half. “Then I found my spots.”
And hit three threes “that loosened them up,” he said.
But while Thomas More lengthened the lead to 10, 67-57, they couldn’t shake the Vikings who kept it mostly in the range of six or seven points.
“I’m proud of our guys,” said Denis Schaefer, in his 24th season at Grand View. “Thomas More is so talented, so well-coached . . . we battled.”
The Vikings also play “with a bit of a chip on our shoulder,” Schaefer said of his team picked to finish 10th in its own Heart of America Conference.
And heck no, Ray said, he wasn’t all that happy to face a team better than it was seeded in order to get a tough challenge right out of the box in the opener after two weeks off.
“I’d love to have had these guys out of there,” he said of a game where his starters were still on the floor killing the clock the final seconds with that seven-point lead.
The 27-4 Saints will face Stillman College out of Tuscaloosa, Ala., Saturday at 6. Stillman held on after holding a double-digit lead most of the game to beat a Union (Ky.) team, 67-65, after the Union coach, Kevin Burton, complained that his Bulldogs had been under-seeded. As it turns out, maybe not.
THOMAS MORE WOMEN 89, HASKELL INDIAN NATIONS UNIVERSITY 42
This is why you win 25 of your 29 regular season games, finish No. 3 nationally and win the regular season in one of the nation’s toughest conferences – the Mid-South.
When tournament time comes around, you want to be at home, you want to host and with a top seed, you want to be playing the lowest seed possible to start.
Mission accomplished for the Thomas More Saints. They shook off the rust from two weeks off after three minutes or so and rocked on to an 89-42 romp over the Haskell Indian Nations University team.
And while it took 3:01 to get on the board, once the Saints did, with eight three-pointers in the first half and playing a dozen players before intermission, Thomas More led 47-16 at halftime against a physically overmatched Haskell team.
“It just feels good to play here,” TMU’s Alex Smith said after firing in 14 points off the bench. “We shoot here every day.”
Friday was one of those days as the Saints knocked down 11 threes in all, 36 field goals total to Haskell’s 18. “Twenty-one assists is a good job,” TMU Coach Jeff Hans said, although he wasn’t pleased with the 15 turnovers. But he was pleased with the crowd.
“For a 1 o’clock start on a Friday afternoon, that was a good turnout,” Hans said.
“Great decisions,” on the assists, Hans said. “Bad decisions,” on the turnovers.
As to playing at home: “It means you’re playing well,” Hans said.
Haskell had 12 hours on the bus for the 680-mile trip from Lawrence, Kan. But for a program starting over with a first-year coach after being shut down completely a year ago because of Covid-19, Haskell was just happy to be anywhere with its 14-12 team.
“To be here at the No. 1-seed Thomas More, a quality program with a quality coach . . . to be on the same court as Thomas More is an honor. They have so many players,” Haskell Coach Adam Strom said, “it makes them tough to scout. They have five on the floor and 10 more on the bench.”
Which is pretty much how this one went as TMU played 15, got 10 of them scoring with 58 of TMU’s points coming from the bench. Taylor Clos came off the bench to lead the Saints with 17 points while Zoie Barth, with 15 points, and Alexah Chrisman, with 11 and nine rebounds, led the way for the starters.
“We knew they had some good shooters,” Haskell’s Nizhoni Thomas said, shaking her head. They did.
Thomas More’s Saturday opponent (3 p.m.) Grand View (Iowa), a 74-67 winner over Lyon College (Arkansas) was paying attention. “They shoot it extremely well,” Coach Kelli Greenway said after her team’s solid win.
“We have to defend the three-point line,” Greenway said.
“We have to force them into tough shots,” said Shannon Pisney, who led the Vikings with 21 points and nine rebounds. Forcing TMU into tough shots was not something Haskell had the physical talent to do.
Dan Weber is the sports editor at-large for Link nky.
