A 20-win season wasn’t enough to keep the Skyhawks at home in the conference tournament quarterfinals.
For the first time in 15 years, the Fort Lewis College men’s basketball team will hit the road for the opening round of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Shootout. At 20-8 overall and 15-7 in conference games, No. 5 FLC fell one game shy of earning the fourth seed and a home game and instead will travel to No. 4 CSU-Pueblo (20-8, 16-6 RMAC) for a 7:30 p.m. elimination game Tuesday at Massari Arena on the CSU-Pueblo campus.
“The hay is in the barn. We just got to go out and play,” FLC head coach Bob Hofman said. “There is the old line that says the journey is better than the end. I think we now have to just enjoy the journey.”
Nobody in the RMAC Shootout has the luxury of time to gameplan for their quarterfinal opponents. Regular-season games concluded Saturday, and final pairings came down to tiebreaker situations that were not announced until late Saturday night.
FLC had one of the more emotionally taxing weekends of the group, as a tough loss to a five-win Western State team Friday night ruined the Skyhawks’ chances of earning a home game in the conference tournament. But the Skyhawks responded with a double-digit win at arch-rival Colorado Mesa on Saturday to secure the No. 5 seed and prevent a potential fall to seventh.
“We are as prepared as we’re going to be without preparing,” Hofman said of the quick turnaround the team faced before beginning to travel to Pueblo on Tuesday morning. “It was a weekend of as low as you can get and as high as you can get.
“Losing is never forever and winning is not forever, either. The bottom line is we’ve enjoyed the road and will go out and play as hard as we can with no regrets and see what happens.”
For FLC, the next loss likely is its last. Outside of the top eight in the South Central Region standings, FLC would need to go on a run to get in the top eight and earn a spot in the regional tournament. But FLC could pass CSU-Pueblo, which is eighth in the most recent rankings.
The Skyhawks will be led into the tournament by Alex Herrera, a 6-foot-9 senior center from Ignacio. The All-American is an RMAC Player of the Year contender and a lock for a third consecutive Defensive Player of the Year award, and Saturday he surpassed Kirk Archibeque for a new FLC single-season scoring record with 670 points. Archibeque, who is from Cortez and played only one season at FLC after transferring, scored 640 points during the 2008-09 season. Herrera also holds the career blocked shots record, single-season blocked shots and single-season free-throw attempts records at FLC.
Herrera has averaged 23.9 points and 11.8 rebounds per game and has recorded 22 double-doubles this season.
“Anything Alex gets, he deserves,” Hofman said. “No matter if we win or lose, he deserves as much success as there is for the season and career he’s had.”
FLC and CSU-Pueblo split the regular-season matchups, with FLC winning in Pueblo 76-70 on Dec. 6 and the ThunderWolves embarrassing the Skyhawks in Durango 83-59 on Feb. 13. CSU-Pueblo won nine of 10 games to finish the regular season.
The Skyhawks hope the second result was a Friday the 13th blunder that won’t be repeated against a deep and athletic ThunderWolves team coached by Ralph Turner.
The ThunderWolves frequently rotate in five fresh players off the bench. Hofman described the first set of five guys as smaller and quicker with the second five being a taller and more physical bunch.
FLC has lost the rebounding battle both times against Pueblo this year, though it was just 40-39 in FLC’s win.
Opportunistic scorers, the ThunderWolves can spread the scoring around and rely heavily on offensive rebounds and second-chance points.
“More than anything, you have to keep them from getting second shots. The best thing they do is rebound,” Hofman said. “I have great respect for Coach Turner. He throws something different at you every game, and they play guys as unselfish as any team in the league.”
Should the Skyhawks win, a trip to the Auraria Events Center in Denver likely would await. They would face the winner of top-seed Metro State and No. 8 Colorado Christian.
But, for now, Hofman wants his team focused on CSU-Pueblo and to enjoy the fruits of the team’s 11th 20-win season in program history.
“We’ve lost difficult games to handle and won games that were unexpected. It’s been a very satisfying year,” Hofman said. “Everybody has competed and played for each other at a high level, and we want to go out there and do it again.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
