The No. 24 Fort Lewis College men’s basketball team has won five games in a row heading into the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference’s opening weekend of league play. Though the defending league champions have already notched some impressive wins, the success hasn’t come without a price.
While star forward Rasmus Bach gets healthier every day after recovering from an offseason knee operation, other Skyhawks have gone in the opposite direction.
Concussion symptoms have kept big men Brandon Wilson and Ross Buchman out of a few games, and even Preseason RMAC Player of the Year Joshua Blaylock was dinged up for a short time after banging knees in the season opener.
The big blow, however, came in Friday’s game as promising redshirt freshman Riley Farris went down with what is feared to be a torn ACL and is out indefinitely.
“These are the types of things that happen with every college basketball team,” head coach Bob Pietrack said in a phone interview with The Durango Herald. “This is why we don’t just recruit five guys. Our depth is a weapon of ours and this is why we practice so hard, to fill the void when someone goes down.”
While the loss of Farris seems like it couldn’t have come at a worse time, there is actually a silver lining. Because it was just his fourth game, and he didn’t play 20 percent of the team’s regular season games, he saves a year of eligibility and can come back as a freshman next year.
Buchman, Alex Semadeni and Wilson will take on the brunt of the responsibility down low with Farris out. The bigs came to play in Saturday’s impressive win against what was a 7-1 Wayland Baptist team that beat Colorado School of Mines the night before.
Wilson was too much for the opponents to handle on the glass and pulled down 14 rebounds against a Pioneers team that was hardly minuscule in size.
He also added eight points and was named RMAC’s Defensive Player of the Week for his efforts. Alex Semadeni had his best game in a starter’s role with 10 points on 4-for-5 shooting from the field.
Though Buchman’s minutes have been limited, he provides a spark as soon as he reaches the scorer’s table.
“Buchman is like an old, beat-up pickup truck with a hemi engine,” Pietrack said. “He’s the type of player every coach wants and every player wants on his side.”
The high-energy, working man’s senior, who wears a mask that looks like it was lifted from a horror movie set, has been a villain to opponents on both ends of the court.
Buchman can score from the inside and out on offense. His effort on the defensive end, to go along with his relentlessness on the boards, make him extremely valuable for the often undersized Skyhawks (5-1). Fans familiar with the program wouldn’t be far off in comparing him to last year’s versatile spark-plug substitute Kody Salcido.
Help on the interior will also come from the variety of guards and forwards on the FLC roster who play bigger than their size indicates. Daniel Hernandez, Dontez Thomas and Jalen Terry all have the skills and toughness to mix it up in the paint with anyone, and they’ll be there often to corral a number of rebounds over taller opponents.
“It’s pretty simple, we’re going to need all hands on deck,” Pietrack said. “Every team goes through a stretch of bad luck, and the good ones fight through it together.”
The Skyhawks will be holding a meet and greet event at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at CJ’s Diner, where fans can get to know the reigning RMAC champions and the impressive, young coaching staff that has led them to new heights.
Fort Lewis will be back on the court to open the league schedule at 7:30 p.m. Friday against CSU-Pueblo at FLC’s Whalen Gymnasium.
jfries@durangoherald.com
