Crusaders will keep guard up
Since 1989, Northwest Christian School has finished in the top three at the State B and A Boys Basketball Tournaments eight times, including three championships, the most recent a B title last March. So is there any chance that opponents may catch the Crusaders fat and happy this season?
The answer during the regular season was an emphatic “no,” as top-ranked NWC took an unbeaten record into the Bi-County League finale at second-place Liberty, putting up a 19-0 overall mark, 15-0 in league. And as tournament play approaches, team co-captain Joe Grewe is especially determined not to let the Crusaders become overconfident.
“My job as a co-captain is to help everybody realize that we’ve got a target on our back, that everybody will play their best against us,” Grewe said recently. “As soon as we start thinking we’re great, that’s when we start getting lazy and stop playing our kind of basketball. We need to always play like we’re the underdog.”
What is Northwest Christian’s style of basketball this season? After losing honorable-mention All-State 6-foot-5 post Karl Richardson to graduation, the Crusaders have become more of a perimeter team, aiming to pressure opposing guards and speed up the pace on nearly every offensive possession.
“We’re definitely a run-and-gun team,” said Grewe, who averages 13 points a game. “We have a lot of good shooters this year, guys who can finish on the break. Last year, everything ran through Karl. This year, our inside guys do all the dirty work.
“There are expectations to get back to State, of course, because everybody’s looking at us knowing that we won last year and really only lost one guy. But we’re a new team this year, not last season’s team, and we need to find our own identity. We need to leave last year’s glory with last year, because how we did then has nothing to do with this season.”
That’s just the sort of attitude that seventh-year head coach Ray Ricks loves to see. This year’s team is the heir to a rich basketball tradition at Northwest Christian, but Ricks agrees with his co-captain that the Crusaders can’t afford to lose sight of what’s made them so successful – hard work and defensive tenacity.
“That tradition drives us in many ways,” he said. “I played on the 1989 state championship team and Mark Williams (an NWC assistant) went to State when he was here. There’s a real brotherhood around the program, and a lot to be said about what that means not only now but for the younger kids at Northwest Christian schools.
“The biggest change we’ve had to make this season is that, in general, we’re pretty small,” he said. “We’ve had to adapt to that, present some different looks to our opponents. We weren’t a dominant state champion last season – we won a lot of close games to get there.”
The Crusaders are still relatively young, starting three juniors, a sophomore and Grewe. Most of the reserve players are sophomores, so good things continue to lie ahead.
Northwest Christian plays in a 5-year-old activity center on the old site of Mater Cleri Seminary in Colbert, and Ricks feels that having a home of their own has contributed to a recent renaissance for the Crusaders.
“Our facility has been a big part of our recent success,” he said. “We used to have to travel to practice, travel to play our games, packing all our stuff around. A place like we have now makes a big difference for kids.”
The top six teams from the District 7 tournament will join the top two from District 9 in regional competition which will send four teams to the brand-new 2B state tournament at the Spokane Arena Feb. 28 to March 3.
Although the Crusaders are ranked No. 1, Ricks is wary of the Republic Tigers, NWC’s championship-game opponent last season. The Tigers won the State B in 2004 and were fifth in 2005.
And as showdown season approaches, Grewe is most excited about the fact that, in his estimation, the Crusaders have yet to play their best basketball.
“We’re still growing,” he said, “still working toward a peak, and we have lots of room to improve. I can hardly wait to see what happens when we put together four great quarters of basketball.”