North Idaho still perfect after sloppy SWAC win

It wasn’t a concert, but fans who attended the North Idaho College-Colorado Northwestern men’s basketball game Saturday night might be experiencing some ringing in their ears this morning.

That’s a byproduct of 58 whistles for fouls, which prevented either team from getting into a flow but it didn’t stop NIC from toppling up the visiting Spartans 101-86 at Christianson Gym.

“It seemed like the game was five hours long,” Cardinals coach Jared Phay said, “because every 10 seconds there was a whistle. We were fouling; they were fouling. It was just a little bit of a sloppy game.”

The 13th-ranked Cardinals hiked their record to 11-0 overall, 1-0 in the Scenic West Athletic Conference as they head into a challenging week. NIC entertains Salt Lake (8-1, 1-0 SWAC) on Thursday before visiting rival College of Southern Idaho (9-2, 2-0) on Saturday.

Colorado Northwestern (4-6, 0-2) was drubbed 97-63 by CSI on Thursday.

“CSI is definitely bigger on the front line,” Spartans coach Darren French said. “Their guards are probably equal to (NIC’s). NIC’s guards are pretty good. It’s going to be a question of whether NIC can contain (forwards) Reggie Larry and Travis Gabbidon. They were struggling for a while, but they’re playing a lot better now.”

NIC’s front line was without center Tommy Craddock on Saturday, who rested an injured groin. Sophomore forward Darin Nagle, a capable 3-point shooter, spent most of his time on the low block and delivered 25 points and six boards. He made 12 of 16 free throws.

“We’ve really been working on getting him down around the basket,” Phay said. “That’s where he can dominate a game and that’s something he can do in our conference.”

Bayo Arigbon replaced Craddock in the starting lineup and had six points and seven rebounds. Forward Zach Parks came off the bench to contribute seven points and four rebounds.

NIC had little trouble generating offense, but Colorado Northwestern proved difficult to guard, too. The Spartans, with an athletic roster put together by first-year coach French, gave NIC fits off the dribble.

“We didn’t want to give up more than 60 points,” Nagle said. “Our defensive effort wasn’t really there. They just play a lot different. You get kind of caught up in the rat ball and racing up and down and that’s really not our game. We started slowing it up and pounding it inside, got our lead, but then they’d hit some shots.”

The Spartans hit a lot of shots, but they also fouled to the final buzzer. CNCC was called for 33 fouls and four of five starters fouled out. NIC cashed in by making 30 of 44 free throws.

NIC held leads in the 10-20 point range most of the way, but could never put the Spartans away. Part of the reason was the rebounding, where CNCC held a 48-38 edge.

“Without Tommy we had a hard time rebounding and then our bigs got into foul trouble,” Phay said.

NIC’s Frank Clair scored 18 points, Keelan Donald had 17 and Mac Hopson 16. LaRon Frazier came off CNCC’s bench to score 25 points.