Seniors In Double Jeopardy Whitworth Foursome Keys On Playoffs As Fond Farewell Both To This Season And Last

The 1994-95 basketball season for Whitworth’s men’s team was like a bad experience encountered by one of those poor saps on a television game show.

You know, the guy who built incredible earnings in the first 25 minutes of the program and lost it all with a series of bad answers in the last five.

Thank you so very much for playing! You didn’t win the grand prize, however, we do have some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out the door!

It’s not the way one wants to end a very good run.

“It all happened so fast, I couldn’t believe it,” senior forward Nate Dunham said. “It seemed like one week we were (ranked) fifth, the next, we were playing spring ball.”

For Dunham and senior teammates Jeff Arkills, John Beckman and Roman Wickers - there is no next year. These four want to do everything humanly possible to get the Pirates to the NAIA Division II national tournament next month at Nampa, Idaho.

Step one starts by winning one of two games this weekend. The fifth-ranked Pirates (18-4 overall, 10-2 Northwest Conference) host Lewis & Clark (14-7, 8-4) Friday night at 8 and Pacific Lutheran (10-10, 6-5) Saturday at 8.

One Whitworth victory clinches the regular season title and home-court advantage for the Pirates for the conference’s postseason tournament, which starts next week.

If Whitworth loses both games this weekend, at the very worst it would finish in second place. Lewis & Clark is the only team that can catch the Pirates in the standings. If that happens, Whitworth would at least host a first-round game next week.

But finishing second isn’t what interests Whitworth.

Last year, the Pirates zoomed to a No. 5 ranking in the country and stayed atop the Northwest Conference for most of the season. Then it all disappeared in one weekend.

There are some eerie similarities between this weekend and the weekend the Pirates faced exactly one year ago.

Then, like now, Whitworth needed to win one of two games to win the regular season. The Pirates were in first place and had a one-game lead over Lewis & Clark and Willamette.

Against lowly Pacific on a Friday night, the Boxers beat visiting Whitworth, 86-77. The next night at Lewis & Clark, the Pioneers beat Whitworth, 73-66. As a result, the Pirates went from first place to third in 48 hours.

Four nights later, Willamette beat Whitworth, 70-64, in the first round of the postseason to end the Pirates’ season.

“I don’t ever want to go through that again,” Beckman said. “That was awful.”

Whitworth coach Warren Friedrichs admits the Lewis & Clark loss was the toughest defeat he’d ever exeperienced in his career.

So this season has been Whitworth’s “Redemption Tour,” especially for the seniors.

Dunham, Arkills and Beckman have all been at Whitworth for four years while Wickers is in his second year.

The first two seasons for the four-year trio were down years for a program that had experienced tremendous success before their arrival.

“It just seemed like there wasn’t a lot of chemistry on those teams (‘92-‘93 and ‘93-‘94),” Beckman said. “On and off the court.”

Team chemistry took a turn for the better last season, but in Arkills’ mind, something was still missing.

“We got along great, but to me, it seemed like there were groups of friends within the team. Now, just recently, the entire team got together to go sledding. I can’t remember a time in my four years that we all did something together that didn’t have anything to do with basketball.”

That togetherness and single-minded focus to get to the playoffs has put the Pirates back at the top of the league and back in the top five in country.

This time, they don’t plan on giving it up.

Last week, on the road, Whitworth defeated Whitman, 73-70, Linfield, 98-96 in overtime and Willamette, 90-87 in double overtime. Last year, the Pirates won just one game on the road in conference.

“I truly think that we’ve taken this season one game at a time,” Wickers said. “We might have started getting ahead of ourselves at the end (last season).”

And how bad does Wickers want to win?

Well, after 95 minutes of basketball had been played because of overtime sessions Friday and Saturday, Wickers had played in all but 8 minutes.

“Personally, I don’t want to look back from the rocking chair and always wonder what would have happened had we gotten the chance to get into the playoffs. This is it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo