Championship basketball teams don’t have the ability to rebuild if they want to stay on top. They have to find a way to reload.
The defending Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season champion Fort Lewis College men’s basketball team lost six seniors from last year’s team that reached the NCAA Division II South Central Region tournament for the third consecutive year under head coach Bob Pietrack and associate head coach Daniel Steffensen. The Skyhawks’ coaches were tasked with replacing that talent this offseason, and they went fishing in deeper water than ever before in an attempt to land elite junior college players who could help FLC once again contend for a conference championship during the 2018-19 season.
FLC announced a signing class of eight new players, with five junior college transfers, one Division I graduate transfer and two freshmen.
“At the NCAA level and at a top 25 school, there is no such thing as rebuilding, and we didn’t want to go with the freshmen route and be young,” Pietrack said. “We wanted to go with the momentum, and we feel these guys will help us do that.
“When you look at the South Central Region, probably the toughest region in all of Division II basketball, it’s a big boy region, and you’ve got to have big boys and got to have guys that are older, seasoned and ready to play right now, and I think we did that with this class.”
Here’s a closer look at FLC’s signing class:
One of FLC’s biggest holes to fill came at small forward. For the last four years, Rasmus Bach held down the small forward spot. A perennial All-RMAC talent, as a senior Bach also was an All-American. Exit Bach to a professional career in Europe and a spot on the Danish national team, welcome Keven Biggs.
Biggs is a 6-foot-4 junior who will join FLC from Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona. Last season, Biggs averaged 17 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. He was first-team all conference, first team all region, the Region I Tournament MVP and was named a NJCAA Division II All-American. His team went 31-5 and finished as the national runner-up.
“Keven is going to have big shoes to fill right away,” Pietrack said. “I think he’s the first junior college All-American we’ve gotten straight out of junior college in the 15 years I’ve been here. It’s a landmark signing for us.”
Biggs is a versatile player who loves to get up and down the floor. He can shoot, drive and play off the ball. He was heavily recruited by all of the nation’s top Division II programs. FLC’s location and engineering program helped him select the Skyhawks.
“After coming from Pima and competing at a high level, I’m looking forward to stepping into the same kind of program and keep the tradition going,” Biggs said. “They play the same style at Fort Lewis that we played here in Tucson. I like to get up and down and affect the game in any area I can, whether that’s offense or defense.”
The last signing of the class was a big one for the Skyhawks, as Division I graduate transfer Otas Iyekekepolor decided to leave Central Arkansas and pursue more playing time with another program. He had a previous relationship with Pietrack, who had recruited the Canadian big man out of high school before seeing him go Division I.
The 6-foot-8 forward didn’t get much playing time at Central Arkansas, however. Though his height wasn’t quite enough for a big man at the Division I level, it will be a huge asset to FLC in Division II.
“I love our front line now,” Pietrack said. “Add Otas to Riley Farris, a four-year player now and a junior who is ready to take off, an all-league caliber player in Marquel Beasley and then Brenden Boatwright, a freshman we stocked in the cupboard last year who redshirted for us and is going to be very good. You add Otas, and we have a really strong front line.
“You don’t find guys like Otas floating around, especially in the RMAC. I think we have an advantage there. I’d take that four over any team in the conference’s four.”
In 70 games at Central Arkansas, Iyekekepolor scored 81 points and had 72 rebounds. He never averaged more than seven minutes per game. He received a full scholarship offer from Division I Chicago State and several elite Division II schools, but he chose FLC for its winning tradition, the town of Durango and the coaches.
“Coach stayed on top of it, and when I went out there I liked it,” Iyekekepolor said. “I am coming from a program where our first year, we were rebuilding and went 2-27. Last year, we won 20 games. Just starting to win again, that felt good. High school, junior high, everywhere I’ve ever been I’ve always won. I didn’t want to go back down to somewhere that was not that good. I see Fort Lewis and I’m like, ‘OK, let’s go try to win it all in D-II.’”
Iyekekepolor aims to be a doctor. He already has his pre-med degree and will take exercise science classes at FLC. Pietrack called him a smart man and player who will bring strong character to the team.
“I’m ready to showcase my true skill set,” Iyekekepolor said. “It’s going to be a fun year, for sure. It’s my last year of collegiate athletics, and I want to truly enjoy it.”
Last year, FLC didn’t have a true point guard. DJ Miles and Daniel Hernandez shared the role despite being shooting guards naturally. This year, Pietrack and Steffensen will have a true point guard in 5-foot-10 AJ Sparks of Jacksonville Junior College out of Texas. He averaged nine points and four assists per game with a 2.4 assist to turnover ratio last season. He will enter FLC as a junior.
Pietrack said if Sparks was two inches taller, he likely would be Division I bound, and he was thrilled to land a player with a winning pedigree.
“It’s a luxury to have a true point guard,” Pietrack said. “In Division II, the hardest things to find are quality bigs and a pure point guard. AJ brings that element. He’s got great vision, and you can’t teach eyes. He’s got a good feel for basketball, he’s been a point guard his whole life and comes from a basketball family. I think he’ll bring real stability to the point guard position for the next two years along with Cesar Molina.”
Sparks prides himself on not turning the ball over, something he learned from his basketball family. He believes he is capable of better than the 2.4 assist to turnover ratio.
“I don’t turn the ball over too much,” he said. “This year was the most I’ve ever turned it over. But I slowed down my turnover ratio, and the last few games I was at 4.1.
“Fort Lewis, I had a lot of interest in them and the way they win as a Division II program. I have a great relationship with the coaches, and they are two of my most favorite coaches I’ve talked to since I’ve been playing basketball. I want to show the fans how to move the ball, spread teams open and let the 3 ball rain like the Warriors. And I want to win a lot of games. I’m all about winning.”
The final missing ingredient to last year’s team was 3-point shooting. FLC averaged only six made 3s per game a year ago and still won the conference. But that caught up to the Skyhawks in the regional and conference tournament championship game. Pietrack would like to see the team back to averaging 10 to 12 per game. Kireed Johnson can help with that.
Johnson is a 6-foot junior out of Glendale Community College in Arizona. Last year, he made 112 3-pointers, which ranked fourth in all of NJCAA D-II. He made 3s at a 44 percent clip and averaged 16.7 points per game.
“I’ve always been able to shoot the ball,” Johnson said. “I took it to the next level after my freshman year when I got hurt. I stayed in the gym every single day, multiple times per day, working on my shot. My coach here at my junior college, he helped me a lot by showing me how to be ready to shoot the ball.
“I’m hoping I can get up there and knock some shots down, and I’m hoping I can come in and help the Fort Lewis legacy live on.”
FLC also added 6-2 junior guard Dwayne McNutt out of Prairie State College out of Illinois. He averaged 23.4 points and 5.7 rebounds last year and was sixth in all of NJCAA D-II in scoring and led the nation in minutes at 37.4 minutes per game. He is another all-region talent.
“Dwayne is a classic combo scoring guard that will have an immediate impact on our team,” Pietrack said. “He has an incredible knack for finding different ways of putting the ball in the hoop. As a coaching staff, we are always looking for players that truly love to play, and Dwayne fits that mold.”
The pipeline of Otero Junior College players making their way to FLC continued this year, as FLC signed 6-5 sophomore Will Wittman. In an average of 17 minutes per game on a team that went 29-5 overall last year and made a deep run in the national tournament, Wittman averaged five points and four rebounds per game.
“Being a Colorado native, Will had been on our recruiting radar for years,” Pietrack said. “Will is the type of player that every winning team needs. He does the little things that help win games.”
No class would be complete without a few freshmen, and the Skyhawks found two in Falcon High School’s Brendan La Rose and Andrew Ludwig out of Trinity High School in Texas.
La Rose was a big signing early for FLC, as he chose the Skyhawks ahead of the Metro State University-Denver Roadrunners. He averaged 16 points, 12 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game as a senior and led all of Class 4A in double-doubles. He was first team all-state.
“We watched Brendan very closely this past summer and fell in love with him and were able to sign him early,” Pietrack said. “La Rose is very versatile and as a forward prospect has everything you need. He’s big and long and plays above the rim both ways, and he can shoot it. He’s a cross between Torrey Udall and Alex Semadeni, for Skyhawk fans that have followed us a bit. He has Torrey’s size and Alex’s athleticism. He’s going to be a great career Skyhawk. If he can help us this year and is in our top nine, he’ll play this year, I can tell ya that.”
Ludwig attended FLC’s camp and caught the eyes of the coaching staff. He was his team’s captain and a first-team all-conference player who averaged 10 points per game last season.
“Andrew came to our individual camp in the summer of 2017 and really impressed our staff with his work ethic, toughness and basketball IQ,” Pietrack said. “Andrew is the type of student-athlete that every coach wants in their program. ...We feel Andrew has his best basketball ahead of him, and we are very eager to see him develop in our program.”
FLC had one extra scholarship to use in recruiting in 2018, as second-year athletic director Barney Hinkle was able to reconnect with Dan Gallagher, a former FLC player from the 1980s.
Gallagher was able to contribute one full out-of-state scholarship to FLC. He named the scholarship after his mother, Nancy Elizabeth Gallagher.
“Throughout her life, my mom loved to support her kids and many other kids in their activities, and basketball was at the top of the list,” Gallagher said in a news release. “She was an avid supporter of FLC basketball during my three years at the college, rarely missing home or away games during that time. I thought it would be appropriate to honor and remember her by creating a scholarship in her name that would benefit a student-basketball player and the FLC program.
“FLC gave me more than I could ever give FLC, and I am forever grateful for the opportunities that my time there has afforded me.”
Division II teams are allowed 10 scholarship athletes. Pietrack had never had more than eight during his previous three years as the team’s head coach but now has nine to compete with against the fully-funded rivals of the conference.
“It’s enormous,” Pietrack said. “It helped a lot and allows us late in the game to get a player like Otas and still have the money. For years, we’ve been playing shorthanded with eight scholarships compared to Denver schools and the rest of the league that have 10. We have nine now, and I think you’ll see that reflect in that our team will be a little bit deeper across the board.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
