The Daily Dive is your deep dive into the news and notes from around the NAIA Hoops World. Every day we will highlight some of the top headlines, conference updates, player accolades, coaching milestones and more. This used to be our Morning Bullet Points series. We went away from it this year, as others were doing similar things and we didn’t want to step on any toes. At the request of many, we have elected to bring it back for the second half of the season. Feel free to DM us on Twitter (@NAIAHoopsReport) or send an email to naiahoopsreport@gmail.com to recommend stories to be included into this segment.
Recap of Yesterday’s Games of the Day:
RV CIU 78 @ 25 Point 86 (Full Recap)
What a job Jake Deer has done in his 2nd season as Head Coach at Point. He has the Skyhawks in 1st place in the Appalachian Athletic Conference, and with the win last night over Columbia International, they were able to increase their lead to put some pressure on the rest of the league. Lorenzo Freeman scored 25pts and added 12rebs for the Skyhawks in the win.
Middle Georgia 83 @ 7 Faulkner 85 (Full Recap)
Faulkner moved to 18-2 on the season and gains complete control moving to 2.5 games up on 2nd place in the SSAC East. These two have had some battles this year, but Faulkner moves to 3-1 over Middle GA in a series that no team won by more than 8pts. Jordan Hamlette continues his big Sophomore season with a 31pt, 6asst game for the Eagles.
2 LSU Shreveport 89 @ 21 LSU Alexandria 91 (Full Recap)
Another fun rivalry game between the two teams. The Fort continues to be one of the toughest places in the NAIA to get a road win at and it took down another Top 25 opponent on Tuesday night. LSUA stormed out of the gates going up by as much as 14pts. LSUS answered the run though and tied it up at half. Shreveport came out of the half and looked like a team that was going to win big. However, this LSUA team showed some toughness and moxie as they were able to hold the line and close the gap and Javon Berry made a runner with 2 seconds left to get the win. Freshman Rodney Munson continues to play great, finishing with a game high 34pts.
MACU 77 @ 8 USAO 80 (Full Recap)
The rivalry between these two teams keeps producing GREAT games. Both teams have great coaches and had their teams ready to go in this one. MACU is finally at full strength and have a lot of talent on this team. Right now they probably need to add to their resume or win the SAC Tournament to get into the National Tournament. We fully expect them to have a good resume by the time the selection committee meets. However, a win tonight would have really gone a long ways. USAO though wasn’t having it as they gutted out a huge SAC win. They remain a game back of SAGU for 1st place in the SAC, but this conference is always so brutal and tough. Cameron Hines dropped a game high 24pts for the Drovers.
Other Scores:
Shout Outs:
– Big night for Brandon Thomas of Bryan College as he secured his 500th rebound. That makes him a 1,000 career point scorer and a 500 career rebounder
– Stayin in the AAC, congrats to Chariss Wilson of Union for joining the 1k point club!
– Big shout out to Vanguard Women’s Coach Russ Davis as he continues to battle Cancer. Prayers up coach!
– Congrats to Zaccheus Darko-Kelly of Providence on winning the Men’s and Brittany Roberts of McPherson (KS) on wining the Women’s Player of the Week awards!
– The 2nd to last NAIA Coaches Poll will be out at some point today. We will be sure to let everyone know once it is posted! Crazy that we just have two polls left of the season. It’s not been perfect, but it’s still been a fun season. Going to be a crazy last couple weeks of the regular season!
