Less than 24 hours after winning a 73-72 thriller that brought the men’s basketball RMAC Shootout title to Fort Lewis College, the Skyhawks gathered together to watch the NCAA Division II Men’s Basketball Tournament selection show.
Just after 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Fort Lewis got the news it will travel to Wichita Falls, Texas, for the eight-team South Central Regional. The action will be hosted by No. 1 seed Midwestern State (24-5), which won the Lonestar Conference.
The Skyhawks will meet No. 7 Dallas Baptist (23-8) in a win-or-go-home opening round matchup Saturday.
“I think we’re just glad to still be playing games,” fifth-year Fort Lewis senior Cade Kloster said. “We get to bring our game down to Texas now, which is pretty cool, but I’m just happy to have at least one more game with these guys.”
Fort Lewis received an automatic bid after Saturday’s last-second win against Colorado Mines. The Skyhawks will head into the tournament having won 15 games in a row, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season title and the RMAC Shootout. At 27-3, they have rewritten the FLC record books with the most wins in school history.
No. 7 Dallas Baptist struggled at the end of its regular season losing three of the last four before running the table in the Heartland Conference tournament. The Patriots advanced with an automatic bid after an 89-83 overtime win in the championship. They were 1-1 against RMAC teams this season with a win against Colorado Christian and a 15-point loss to Colorado Mesa in November.
The Skyhawks aren’t complaining, but a very strong case could have been made for the South Central Regional to be played at Fort Lewis College’s Whalen Gymnaiusm.
Top-seed Midwestern State lost more games in a row within a four-game losing streak than Fort Lewis did all season. The Mustangs also lost by double digits to CSU-Pueblo, a team Fort Lewis beat three times.
“It’s not our job to critique the system. We’re just trying to play the best we can no matter who is in front of us,” Fort Lewis head coach Bob Pietrack said. “We won 27 games of a brutal 30-game schedule, and I thought we did everything we could have. The important thing is that we have a chance to compete and prove ourselves.”
Unfortunately, that chance was denied to the Fort Lewis women’s team. Though very strong to end the season, FLC was left out of the 64-team tournament. The Skyhawks (19-11) women won 11 of the last 15 games down the stretch, finding their way after senior leader Mary Rambo was lost to concussion-like symptoms.
As the No. 8 seed in the RMAC Shootout, the FLC women upset No. 1 seed Colorado Mines and No. 5 UC-Colorado Springs before losing in the final to CSU-Pueblo. In all, four RMAC teams made the tournament with Black Hills State joining Colorado Mines, UC-Colorado Springs and CSU-Pueblo.
Texas Woman’s got in as the eighth seed in the women’s bracket. FLC had one more region win than Texas Woman’s and played in the tough conference. Texas Woman’s also played three NAIA schools, while FLC did not count its games against NAIA competition.
jfries@durangoherald.com
