BRACKETOLOGY
  • Good Morning NAIA Hoops Nation. Welcome to another edition of our NAIA Morning Bullet Points. Your morning round up of what’s happening around the NAIA Hoops World.
  • We will start you all off this morning with the BEST story of the day. In case you missed it, yesterday was the Mike Doug Game at Ottawa. The game and day was dedicated to the Ottawa Braves student manager Michael Douglas. Mike has a lung disease that requires him to wear oxygen, but his limitations don’t stop him from loving the game of basketball. So, the Ottawa Braves gave him a jersey yesterday, and let him to be announced in the starting line up.
  • Then he got checked into the game and made a basket, and the story made it on to ESPN this morning.
  • The best part of all of the videos and photos, aren’t just his teammates reactions, or the fans reactions, it is the smile that HE had on HIS face the entire time, as he lived out his dream of playing college basketball. Moments like these should help to remind us that this sport is more than just a game. The smile on Michael’s face says all that needs to be said about the moment at Ottawa University yesterday.
  • Thank you Michael for letting us all share your day with you. Life is about making positive impacts on those around you. I have never met you, but watching the game, seeing the videos, and looking at the photos, and tweets people have written you; you can tell that you sir, have made quite the impact on the lives of those around you. God Bless and good luck!
  • As we move on to our circled games from yesterday, I will let everyone know that there are 10-15 games most nights that we could circle as must watch games. We don’t have a method for most of our picks, we simply put games that will help draw in people who don’t know much about NAIA, and encourage them to watch. Or, we highlight games that have implications on conference tournament seeding/qualifying for the tournament.
  • Our first NAIA DI game we had circled for yesterday was a Gulf Coast Athletic Conference 1st place matchup that saw #15 Xavier (LA) defeat #20 Talladega 91-76. The Gold Rush have now won 6 straight games and were led by All-Americans William Lloyd’s 22 points, and RayShawn Mart’s 21 points. The Gold Rush will go for 7 straight when the host Edward Waters tomorrow.
  • There were so many big time games in NAIA DII yesterday, but one of the main ones we had circled was not just a battle between #2 Indiana Wesleyan and #11 Bethel (IN), but also a battle between two 1st Team All-Americans and Player of the Year candidates in Kyle Mangas (Indiana Wesleyan) and TreVion Crews (Bethel). If you didn’t watch this game, you missed a great one. IWU though was too much down the stretch and pulled away late in a game that was a lot closer then the final score of 97-84.
  • Congratulations to Canaan Coffey on scoring his 1,000th career point in this game!
  • Another NAIA DII Top 10 matchup we had circled saw #3 College of Idaho knock off #5 Oregon Tech 70-59. The win moves College of Idaho to 13-0 in the Cascade Conference and gives them a 2 game lead for 1st place. The win also was pretty big for Jake Bruner and Talon Pinckney as they became the first two players in Yotes history to move over 100 wins in their career.
  • A few more milestones to point out from this weekend:
  • Congrats to Coach Burton on his 200th career win as the head coach for the Union Bulldogs.
  • Congrats also to Kourtlandt Martin of IU South Bend on joining the 1K Club!
  • Austin Jones of Mount Vernon Nazarene also joined the 1k club yesterday, Congrats Austin!
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