THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Jan. 22, 2014

It takes more than just showing up and rolling out the basketballs to win in the Scenic West Athletic Conference.

A few good bounces, some trickery or just a good night shooting can mean anything from a win to a loss on any given night.

IN SATURDAY'S game between the Utah State-Eastern Golden Eagles and North Idaho College women, it was the Golden Eagles that did just enough to get a 63-61 win in Coeur d'Alene.

Eastern, which uses an up-tempo style of offense made famous by the men's team at NCAA Division III Grinnell (Iowa) College, didn't have a single player that logged over 22 minutes in the game.

"Basically the idea is to shoot the ball 90 times a game, half of them 3-point attempts," Utah State-Eastern coach Dave Paur said. "And you full-court press and substitute every minute and a half, or thereabouts."

While USU-Eastern didn't shoot 90 times in the game - the Golden Eagles finished with 68 - NIC still had a shot to send the game into overtime or win it before a turnover cost the Cardinals the game.

"We just installed it this year," Paur said. "I've coached 39 years and decided that I wanted to have a little fun at the end of my coaching career, so I put this in and it's been up and down this year."

Utah State-Eastern is 10-11 overall and NIC is now 17-5.

"In this league, I call Salt Lake, North Idaho and Southern Idaho the big three," Paur said. "They, to me, are the top three teams year in and year out. If you can beat one of them, you've got to feel pretty good about yourselves, and right now, we feel pretty good about ourselves."

SO WHERE does that leave the NIC women?

Currently the Cardinals sit in fourth place with a 3-4 conference record behind 4-3 Utah State-Eastern.

NIC has lost three of its last four home games, with a 78-55 win against Colorado Northwestern last Thursday coupled with a 68-63 overtime loss to Salt Lake and an 84-64 setback to Southern Idaho.

The tough part starts Thursday as NIC returns to the road in conference for the first time since December, taking on league-leading Salt Lake. NIC plays at Snow on Saturday.

"It will be fun," NIC women's coach Chris Carlson said. "It'd be nice to get on that road and get some wins. We've got three straight road trips, but they're not easy road trips."

They'll follow up this trip next week against Southern Idaho in Twin Falls (Feb. 1), before going to Colorado Northwestern on Feb. 6 and Utah State-Eastern on Feb. 8.

"When you're on the road, you're more focused on what you're there to do," Carlson said. "Hopefully, we can find something on this road trip to get us going in the right direction."

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at JEPressSports