THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Wednesday, March 23, 2016

It wasn’t the desired finish that the North Idaho College men’s basketball season had in mind to the season that started with a 30-0 record and a berth in the national tournament for the first time since 1997.

Then again, 22 other teams didn’t finish with that national title either.

NIC RECEIVED an at-large bid to the tournament in Hutchinson, Kan., after finishing runner-up in the Region 18 tournament in Twin Falls Feb. 25-27.

The Cardinals didn’t play at nationals until March 15, 17 days since losing to Salt Lake in the regional finals. NIC’s season came to an end when the fifth-seeded Cardinals lost their first game at nationals, to 12th-seeded Southwest Tennessee, 73-72 last Tuesday.

“We played pretty well,” second-year NIC coach Corey Symons said. “A couple of Division I coaches talked to me beforehand about us being a first-time coaching staff and a team. You learn a lot. Everyone kept saying that you’ve just got to get past that first game, then anything can happen. The tough thing is, it was great that we had a bye. But it was tough because they’d already had a game on that court. It’s a different floor and different atmosphere, so it’s a little different to shoot and play in. It was tough for us because we were coming off 17 days without playing a game. Got up 11-0 and then we hit the wall and went flat. We should have won that game and led for 39 minutes. We missed three free throws in the last minute, and they hit an unbelievable 3-pointer with great defense. You’ve got to tip your hat to them, their coaches does a great job with them. Southwest Tennessee has a lot of good players, and unfortunately, it didn’t go our way. That’s why they call it March Madness.”

Southwest Tennessee shot 14 of 41 from beyond the 3-point line in the win against NIC.

“I told my staff the night before the game that the most frequent upset in a tournament is that 5-12 matchup,” Symons said. “We talked about it, but it was a little disappointing for our guys to finish that way because they deserved a little bit more. But they left it all on the floor. It was a great year, and they can’t take anything from us. We got stuck in Hutch, so we stayed and watched. Our entire team watched and feel that we were the best team in Hutch — we really do — and we could have won that thing. But it’s all about who’s playing well at that time, and we weren’t playing very well at that time.”

Trinity Valley, which entered the tournament 33-2 and the top seed, lost in the quarterfinals to Gillette (Wyo).

“It’s college basketball, anybody can beat anybody on any given night,” Symons said. “The biggest thing is who’s playing the best and hitting shots. And that’s how it was against Southwest Tennessee. They shot 41 3-pointers, and didn’t make a big percentage, but hit a few at big moments down the stretch that were huge.”

With time running out, NIC put up a jumper that came up short of the rim as the game ended. The official nearest to the NIC bench had whistled the play for goaltending, but was overruled by the other two officials on the court.

“Going down to the wire, had a three-point lead and missed two free throws, then they hit that shot,” Symons said. “If we could have hit a few shots, we could have stretched it out, we could have been fine. That last play, it’s a tough one because we rewind to the UCLA/SMU (2015 NCAA Tournament) game, it’s the same thing. The chances of that ball going in are slim, but technically it was a goaltend. At our level, there’s no replay. The frustrating thing is the referee in front of us called it and the others talked him out of it. You don’t want to lose that way and you don’t want to win that way. We had our chances in the last two minutes, but we didn’t come through.”

NIC finished the season 31-2, its best finish in school history.

MEANWHILE, SALT Lake, which had to win a regional title, as well as a district title game against Cochise, the Arizona champion, cruised to its second national title in school history by beating tournament host Hutchinson 74-64 on Saturday night. Salt Lake was unranked in the final NJCAA poll, and likely would not have earned an at-large berth to nationals if the Bruins hadn’t beaten NIC and Cochise.

“The regional tournament, we weren’t playing our best basketball and Salt Lake was,” Symons said. “They won a national title, and they handled everybody there. They didn’t have a close game the entire tournament. Tip our hats to them, they did a great job and deserve it. (Salt Lake coach) Todd (Phillips) deserves it.”

Phillips was an assistant coach when Salt Lake won in 2009, and was head coach when the Bruins made it to nationals in 2013 and ’14.

“It’s a little bittersweet that it stays in our league, but it wasn’t us,” Symons said. “We’d beaten them three times. I just feel bad for our guys, and it’s a little bit of Todd knows what to expect. We were just kind of riding the high and didn’t know what to expect when we got there.”

And with NIC moving from the nationally based NJCAA to the regionally based Northwest Athletic Conference for the 2016-17 season, who knows if or when they’ll get a chance to go back.

“It’s bittersweet, because I want to have a chance to get back there,” Symons said. “Now that we know what it’s like, we feel we can put together a team to go back there and win that thing. And I think that benefited Todd and his staff because they’d been there a couple of times and knew what to expect.”

From nationals, players that haven’t made up their minds on their future continue to gather interest. Shooting guard Braian Angola-Rodas, who has been looked at by Oregon and Houston in recent weeks, has now received interest from Oklahoma State. Lucas Antunez, a two-year starter at point guard, it drawing interest from Oklahoma State and Wichita State, where NIC practiced on its trip to Hutchinson.

Forward B.J. Blake has signed with Idaho, and former Lake City High standout Kyle Guice has verbally committed to Illinois-Chicago.

Even though it wasn’t the finish they had in mind, that didn’t take away anything from the season in Symons’ eyes.

“This is a special group,” Symons said. “To go 30-0 in the regular season, and it looks better now with the national champion in our league. We beat the champs three of four times. This is arguably the best league in the nation, and to do what we did this year was pretty special. They’re never going to be able to take that from us. We came up a little short, but we still made history.”

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 jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JEPressSports.