Game notes
ELLENSBURG, Wash. (Nov. 13) — The Central Washington University men's basketball team will get its first taste of competition for the 2014-15 season Friday and Saturday, when the Wildcats play at the Seattle Pacific University Sodexo Tip-Off Classic.
Friday, at 3 p.m., CWU takes on the University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC). Then, 24-hours later, the Wildcats will face Academy of Art University from San Francisco. Sodexo, the United States' leading provider of food and facilities management, sponsors the tournament.
This will be CWU's second meeting all time with the Minnesota, Crookston. The Wildcats feasted on the Golden Eagles 95-78 at the 2003 Central Washington Rotary Classic in Nicholson Pavilion. That was also the first game of the season for CWU.
The Golden Eagles, of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, went 4-34 last season. This year, the team is under new management, as former Minnesota State University Moorhead assistant Dan Weisse has taken the helm as head coach.
"They're trying a whole different system," says CWU head coach
Greg Sparling. "They're going to a slow-down offense as compared to what they did last season when they tried to get out and push it a little bit. So the new coach is trying to get his system installed. But they've got some quality players back."
The best of them may be senior guard Kevin Larson, who was picked as the team's Player to Watch. He was the only UMC player to start all 27 games last season, when he averaged a team high in minutes at 30.4 per game. He scored 4.4 points, grabbed 3.0 rebounds and dished out 3.6 assists per contest.
UMC's slow-down style will be in stark contract to CWU, which wants an up-tempo game. Sparling will do what he can to get what he wants.
"We're going to get out and disrupt them, try to deny ball reversal and make it even more challenging for them," Sparling notes of his defensive game plan. "If we play in the 50s and 60s, we're going to be in trouble. I think we've got to get it [the score] up into the 80s. If we press and push the basketball, we're capable of that. Our defense can make our offense go. "
CWU is 2-0 in games played against Academy of Art. Both of them were also played in SPU-hosted tournaments.
"It will be a whole different style of game—an up-tempo game the next day," Sparling predicts of the contest with Academy of Art. "It's a tale of two teams, one that slows it down and one that speeds it up. And you don't have a lot of turnaround time. Basically, after we get done playing, we have about 22 hours to get ready for the next game."
CWU knocked out the Urban Knights 96-61 in the 2009 Falcons Invitational, played after Christmas, and also aced the Academy 104-87 in the opening game of the year at the 2012 Sodexo Tip-Off Classic.
Mark McLaughlin, in his first game as a Wildcat, led the CWU scoring with 31 points in that contest. It was a harbinger of things to come.
McLaughlin capped his CWU career last season leading all of NCAA Division II in scoring at 27.1 points per game. In all, the Wildcats graduated their top three scorers from 2014.
However, CWU showed no lack of offensive punch in the team's season opener, a 120-92 exhibition home victory over Another Level Blue Angels. CWU connected on 18 of 31 three-points shots to blow the game open in the second half.
Jordan Russell came off the bench and led the Wildcats with 24 points in the victory, as he hit on all six shots he took from three-point range. He added six assists for good measure in just 19 minutes of action. Russell was one of six Wildcats in double figures.
"J-Russ is a perfect sparkplug off the bench," Sparling says. "He can really shoot the ball. But what we're asking him to do even more is hound the ball [on defense] and get to the rim. He's so quick in between the free-throw lines I think he can wreak havoc on defenses."
This weekend action is being played in SPU's Royal Brougham Pavilion, named for the long-time sports editor and columnist for the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. It's akin to a second home to the Wildcats.
Since 1985, the Wildcats have played 35 tournament games on the Brougham floor, facing teams from 12 different states and Canada. The Wildcats have won 24 of those contests.
"A lot of our kids are from that [Seattle] area and we get a lot of friends and family there," Sparling points out as a reason he like to play in tournaments hosted by Seattle Pacific. "And it's good-quality competition."
During his 20 years leading the Wildcats, Sparling has seen his teams win 15 tournament games at SPU, including eight of 10 since 2009. Sparling starts his 20th full season as the Wildcat coach at the Sodexo tourney. He has already won 322 games, third most in school history and first among anyone not named Nicholson. He trails only the legendary father-son coaching combination of Leo, 505 wins, and Dean, 609 wins. Spar actually played collegiately for Dean Nicholson at CWU.
It will be a quick turnaround for Sparling and his Wildcats after the weekend in Seattle. Next weekend, November 21-22, CWU takes part in the GNAC/PacWest Challenge in Laie, Hawaii, taking on BYU-Hawaii on Friday and Hawaii Pacific on Saturday.
"It's going to be a quick four games and we've got to make sure we keep getting better each day," Sparling says.
