NIC MEN'S, WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: Cardinals home for Snow tonight
COEUR d’ALENE — Both the North Idaho College men’s and women’s basketball team spent the holiday break climbing.
No, not nearby mountains, but the NJCAA polls.
The NIC men (18-0, 3-0 Scenic West Athletic Conference), ranked 13th in the final poll of 2015, climbed up to eighth in this week’s poll. They are joined for the first time this season by the NIC women (14-2, 2-1), who entered the first poll of 2016, is ranked 25th in this week’s poll.
The NIC men are coming off a win in the Coeur d’Alene Inn-vitational last week.
“Looking back, we’ve had one of the toughest nonconference schedules we’ve ever had,” NIC men’s coach Corey Symons said. “We didn’t have any all-star teams, and no offense to Salish Kootenai, but we didn’t play them either. And these guys are weathered and tested heading into conference.”
Tonight, NIC returns home to Rolly Williams Court to face Snow, starting with the women’s game at 5:30 p.m., followed by the men’s game at 7:30.
On Saturday, top-ranked Salt Lake (18-0, 3-0 entering tonight’s women’s game at CSI) comes to Coeur d’Alene with tipoff at 3 p.m. Salt Lake’s men’s team is 21st in this week’s poll and are 16-2, 3-0.
“We’re going to find out how good we are this week,” Symons said. “We’ve got two really good teams coming in here with Snow and Salt Lake. We’re through with the preseason schedule, and now we’re going to get down to the nitty gritty. We’re still going to take it one game at a time.”
BJ Blake (23.2 points per game) and Braian Angola-Rodas (22.5 ppg) are the top two scorers in the conference for NIC, which also leads the SWAC in scoring at 95.5 points per game. Snow is fifth at 78.6 points per game.
“All of our guys are playing well right now,” Symons said. “That’s the tough thing right now is trying to find everyone playing time. We’re trying to find minutes and with BJ playing so well right now, and Kyle (Guice) is playing well right now. I’d like to get Tony (Naccarato) out there because he’s been playing his butt off and we’re going to need him a lot when we get into conference play. At the same time, we need to keep playing the guys that are playing really well.”
NIC’s women won the Lower Columbia Holiday Classic last week in Longview, Wash., and have won 11 of its last 12 games, including 20-point wins on the road at Utah State-Eastern (82-59) and Colorado Northwestern (80-54) on Dec. 17 and 19. NIC leads the conference in scoring at 80.7 points per game, while Snow is fifth at 67.6, but second in scoring defense at 57.3 points per game.
Snow (12-6), is tied with NIC for third in the conference with a 2-1 record. They are coached by first-year coach Mike Russell, who coached at Bonneville High of Odgen, Utah for the past eight years before taking over the program.