- Good morning NAIA Hoops Nation! We hope everyone had a GREAT Thanksgiving. What a great first month of NAIA basketball we had. There were a lot of great games, with a few upsets mixed in here and there. We have a few surprise teams who are playing really well, and also a few teams who were expected to have big years, who are still trying to find their way. The best part is that, no matter what a teams journey has been thus far, there is still a lot of season left, and December will bring new opportunities for teams to prove themselves.
- As we look back at Thanksgiving week, we have to mention how great both ‘The Show’ and ‘Battle at the Beach’ events were. A big shout out to Rio Grande Head Coach Ken French and his staff, for organizing and running one of the better small college events in the country. ‘The Show’ gave us three days of great matchups, and featured several teams who should make it to the NAIA DII National Tournament.
- The Battle at the Beach was also a great small college event this past week. Only in it’s first year, the Faulkner (AL) coaches and athletic staff did a great job of making this one of the best small college in-season tournaments around.
- It was a really good field this year, but Faulkner would knock off Lindsey Wilson in the Championship game.
- In the semifinals, Faulkner defeated #11 LSU-Alexandria on a buzzer beater that would make Sportscenter!!
- Your All-Tournament Team:
- Congratulations to College of Idaho’s Nate Bruneel as he joined the 1,000 pt club this weekend!
- The Masters (CA) Brock Gardner was ultra impressive last week as he put up back to back 40 point games.
