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.
In case you missed it, we hit 10k followers on Twitter yesterday! While it may seem like a humble brag to mention it again, let me assure you that for us, it is fun to see all the love and comments that we got from the post. We started this site as an idea between a group of guys who just wanted to bring more attention to NAIA basketball. While we thought we would garner some traffic, we never expected the site or the brand to grow like it has over the past year and a half. Let me reiterate the fact that no one on the site is a website designer. Nor are we marketing guru’s, or even perfect writers by any means. We are simple people who decided to “jump in” and learn as we go. We expected we would have the time to learn as the site grew over a few years. However, the site and our social media accounts blew up last year with our coverage. We have been learning on the fly this entire time, but it has been worth it! We may never be the best at web design, or perfect writers, but we will be passionate about our coverage and continue to work our tails off to bring you the best coverage we can!
Recapping some of the games from yesterday:
In our four Games of the Day:
William Jessup 74 vs #7 Lewis-Clark State 85 (Full Recap)
#7 Lewis-Clark State proved to be too much for William Jessup as they pulled away in the second half to win 85-74. Trystan Bailey chipped in a career high 27 points, while All-American Damek Mitchell added in 19pts, 13reb and 6assts in the win. William Jessup stud Freshman Myles Corey finished with 27pts in the loss.
#6 Georgetown 79 @ Campbellsville 65 (Full Recap)
This was a rivalry game that has brought us some really fun games over the past few years. Yesterday’s game though saw Georgetown go on a big 16-2 run to start the 2nd half to get a comfortable 79-65 Mid-South road win. Another Freshman making some big noise as of late is Derrin Boyd of Georgetown who finished the game with 25 points. Sophomore Kyran Jones contributed 16 points to go with 20 rebounds in the win. Coach Chris Briggs and GTown lost 3 All-Americans, including the National Player of the Year, from last season, but have looked good as of late, led by the two youngsters.
RV Bethel (IN) 79 @ 20 Saint Francis (IN) 77 (Full Recap)
RV Bethel (IN) went into #20 Saint Francis (IN) and got a HUGE Crossroads League road win yesterday. In a game that featured some great guard play it was Mr. Reliable TreVion Crews who walked away with a game high 27pts to help lead the Pilots to the win. Antwaan Cushingberry paced Saint Francis with 20pts.
14 Providence (MT) 86 @ Montana Tech 83 (Full Recap)
The Montana Tech Orediggers couldn’t pull out the comeback yesterday as they lost to #14 Providence (MT) 83-86. All-American Sindou Diallo had 20 points for the Orediggers. Davion Harris-Williams paced the Providence Argos with 20pts. National Player of the Year candidate Zaccheus Darko-Kelly fell one assist short of a Triple-Double as he finished the game with 14pts, 12rebs and 9assts in the win.
Other notable scores:
– UPike went on the road to defeat #11 Cumberlands in OT 93-88. (Full Recap)
– Ave Maria stays tied for 1st place in The Sun Conference with an 86-73 win over Coastal Georgia. (Full Recap)
– Shawnee State rolled 81-57 over Thomas More to set up a big game on Thursday when #7 Georgetown comes to town. (Full Recap)
The Cal Pac came out with an update to their league schedule. They will play their conference season in two phases. Only six teams will play the February, Phase 1, schedule. Those six teams will also be the only ones able to play for the Cal Pac conference tournament with the winner getting an automatic birth to the National Tournament. The six teams who will still be playing are:
Benedictine U – Mesa
Park U – Gilbert
Pacific Union
Saint Katherine
Simpson
Westcliff
Another healthy slate of games today. Be sure to check back in with us later to see who makes the cut for our Games of the Day and who gets mentioned as our Players to Watch today!
