- Good Morning NAIA Hoops Nation!! Saturday’s are always the biggest game slate of the week, so even with the weather postponing several games, we had plenty to watch still. We have said it before, but conference games are never easy, and yesterday proved it as we had several ranked opponents, in each division, go down!
- DI Game Recaps
- #7 Providence (MT) 88 – #23 Carroll (MT) 93
- 3 All-Americans on the floor, Carroll undefeated at home, and Providence undefeated headed into the game. This game lived up to they hype! It seemed every time that Carroll got any kind of momentum, Player of the Year candidate Zaccheus Darko-Kelly would hit a big shot to bring Providence back. Carroll pulled away late to get a 12 point lead, and over the last 1:15 seconds, Darko-Kelly scored, or assisted on every point to bring them back to have a shot to tie it with 5 seconds left. He finished the game with a game high 33 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists. Carroll has now beaten #7 Providence and #13 Lewis-Clark St at home in Frontier Conference play. They were led by Jovan Sljivancanin’s 22 point, 10 rebound performance. Game Recap|Box Score
- #25 Dillard (LA) 88 – #24 Talladega (AL) 97
- After Dega, at 11-2, was rated 4th by the conference rater, behind a 9-5 Dillard program, we circled this game right away. Both programs have good teams, and you can talk about strength of schedule all you want, but we had a feeling that Dega, at home, would be up for this game. Dega took a 13-11 lead with 13 minutes to go in the 1st Half, and never trailed again. Morriss Dunnigan (28) and Phil Winston (27) helped lead the way in the win. Malik Amos had a game high 31 points for Dillard. Box Score
- #4 Pikeville (KY) 69 – #19 Lindsey Wilson 80
- Pikeville has now lost 3 conference games since break, and continue to play without a couple players. While they are struggling to win games, Coach Wells and his staff are as good as they come in NAIA, and will no doubt figure out how to right the ship. This was a much needed win for Lindsey Wilson, as they too, came into yesterday’s game having lost 3 games since the Holiday break. Reece Brooks though used a career high 28 points to help get the Blue Raiders the win. Game Recap|Box Score
- DII Recaps
- Grace 77 – #17 Saint Francis (IN) 76 OT
- Grace has now won 9 of it’s last 11 games, including their last two wins over #9 Bethel (IN) and #17 Saint Francis (IN) both of which came on the road. They are now 5-1 in the Crossroads League, which puts them currently in a tie for 1st place with #2 Indiana Wesleyan. No matter where the season takes them from here, it has been a great first year for Head Coach Scott Moore. Jaret Sons once again came up big with 23 points and 12 rebounds in the win. Game Recap|Box Score
- #2 Indiana Wesleyan 93 – #15 Spring Arbor 68
- Just a complete dominant performance on both ends of the floor for IWU. We talked about it earlier in the week, that Spring Arbor usually plays in close games, but last nights game got away from them a bit. A lot of that had to do with Kyle Mangas having a big night as he dropped 35 points, and added in 5 assists and 4 rebounds. Kyle has been on a completely different level over the past few games, and IWU sure has played well since their 2OT loss at Madonna back in the middle of December. Game Recap|Box Score
- It was not a great day for the NAIA DI Top 10, as #2 The Masters (CA), #4 Pikeville (KY), #6 LSU-Shreveport, #7 Providence (MT) AND #8 Loyola (LA) all got beat yesterday. There has been a lot of turnover in both NAIA DI and DII since the last rankings were out. Be sure to catch our new rankings later today!
- Justin Martin of Multnomah broke his own NAIA DII scoring record last night with 74 points.
- We had a few more players join the 1k point club as well, congrats to them all:
- Also congratulations are in store for Dimetres Moore at OUAZ, and Zavier Lucero at Cal Maritime, as they both became the new all-time leading scorers at their Universities!!
- We will end today’s bullets with two MONSTER dunks that are both TOP 10 worthy:
