NIC MEN'S BASKETBALL: Plenty of firepower
<p>JAKE PARRISH/Press North Idaho's Lucas Antunez gets a pass off after faking out Marcus White, left, and Gibson Johnson of Salt Lake on Saturday at North Idaho College.</p>
<p>JAKE PARRISH/Press North Idaho's Lucas Antunez drives along the baseline towards the basket as Salt Lake's Austin Waddoups defends him on Saturday at North Idaho College.</p>
COEUR d’ALENE — When BJ Blake gets going, the eighth-ranked North Idaho College men’s basketball team is tough to beat.
When Braian Angola-Rodas does the same, chances are the opposing team is in for a long evening.
But when sophomore post Kaleb Warner can contribute 17 points and seven rebounds on a night when Blake scores 34 and Angola-Rodas adds 25, then you’re really in for problems.
NIC forced 19 turnovers against the Salt Lake Bruins, ranked 21st in this week’s NJCAA poll in an 87-77 Scenic West Athletic Conference win on Saturday night at Rolly Williams Court.
Both Blake (12th with 22.6) and Angola-Rodas (11th with 22.9) are ranked in the top 15 in points per game nationally for NIC, which improves to 20-0, 5-0 in conference play.
“They play so well together,” NIC coach Corey Symons said. “We just keep preaching team and sharing the ball. When you look at our stats, you don’t think that because we’ve got two guys that are leading us in points and shot attempts, but they’re sharing the ball and playing good defense. That’s a huge win for us tonight. Salt Lake is historically a great program and coach (Todd) Phillips does a great job with them. They’re a good team and really talented. That’s a big win for us to beat them and start 5-0 in conference.”
Salt Lake (17-3, 4-1) finished the game 28 for 56 from the field.
“Only wrote two things on the board today — rebound the basketball and play good defense,” Symons said. “We’ve got some good bigs. We sat down and guarded. We relaxed a little bit, but they’re buying into what we want them to do.”
NIC travels to Southern Idaho next Saturday at 4 p.m. PST. CSI rallied from a second half deficit to beat Snow 87-86 in other SWAC play on Saturday in Twin Falls.
“Nice thing is we can rest right now,” Symons said. “We’ll give them Sunday and Monday off and let them recover and let (NIC athletic trainer) Randy (Boswell) do what he does best in the training room and ice them up. We’ve only got one game, but it’s a big one — all of them are big ones — but I told them no more nonconference games, so they’re all big. As long as we’ve got that mentality that we’re underrated and play with something to prove, we should be all right.”
Blake scored 18 points in the first half to push NIC out to a 43-35 halftime lead.
“I think we’re playing at the peak of our game right now,” Blake said. “We’re just playing great ball. We’re having fun and we’ve got freshmen on the team that haven’t touched the court yet, but we’re having fun. I think this could be one of the best teams to ever come through NIC, and I just really love it here.”
Angola-Rodas added 14 of his 25 in the first half.
“Me and Braian, our coaches put a lot on our shoulders and expect a lot from us,” Blake said. “We’ve got to pick these guys up when we’re down. But I just love playing with this team. We beat a great team, and they’re one of the best teams in the SWAC, but I really think to win this conference, it comes through North Idaho. That’s just how we feel and we’ve got something to prove to everyone. We want to get to the national tournament and win it all.”
Salt Lake battled back from a 20-point deficit early in the second half to cut it to 80-71 on a 3-pointer by Austin Waddoups with 2:29 remaining.
“We fought back, but I don’t think we fought hard enough tonight,” Salt Lake coach Todd Phillips said. “North (Idaho) did a heck of a job. It’s a great win for those guys. Angola-Rodas and Blake, they had a great night. Those guys are monsters and they played great tonight. We’ve got to figure out a way to slow them down.”
SALT LAKE
Gibson Johnson 1-2 1-2 3, Bushmen Ebet 6-9 2-2 17, Marcus White 5-8 4-6 14, Tyler Rawson 5-11 2-4 13, Tad Dufelmeier 2-5 0-0 6, Austin Waddoups 3-8 3-4 9, Conner Toolson 2-6 0-0 5, Mckay Johnson 2-2 1-1 5, Christian Musoko 1-2 0-0 2, Tanner Newbold 1-3 0-1 3. Totals 28-56 13-20 77.
NORTH IDAHO
Sam Dowd 0-0 0-0 0, Lucas Antunez 0-1 3-4 3, Haywood Irwin 1-2 0-0 2, Trey Burch-Manning 0-2 3-4 3, BJ Blake 12-22 7-8 34, Braian Angola-Rodas 8-14 8-9 25, Kaleb Warner 6-13 3-3 17, Kyle Guice 1-4 0-0 3, Scott Turner 0-0 0-0 0, Tony Naccarato 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 28-58 24-28 87.
Halftime — NIC 43-35. 3-point goals — SLCC 8-27 (Ebet 3-6, White 0-2, Rawson 1-4, Dufelmeier 2-4, Waddoups 0-3, Toolson 1-5, Newbold 1-3), NIC 7-23 (Antunez 0-1, Irwin 0-1, Blake 3-7, Angola-Rodas 1-6, Warner 2-4, Guice 1-4). Rebounds — SLCC 32 (Johnson, Newbold 5), NIC 30 (Warner 7). Assists — SLCC 9 (Waddoups 3), NIC 19 (Angola-Rodas 8). Team fouls — SLCC 23, NIC 20. Fouled out — Waddoups, Guice.