I wanted to wait on posting this for a couple days. I didn't watch the game live, but I followed North Central's NCAA Tournament game on live stats a bit here and there, and followed a bit of the commentary on Twitter. On Sunday, I watched the entirety of the game. I then needed a little bit of time, with all of this, to digest what I had seen and read to really come up with an accurate piece to go with the end of another basketball season.
The following are all tweets that were retweeted by the NCC Basketball Twitter account, which is run by someone close to the team, but is not an officially run account.
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| Photo from St. Olaf Athletic Department |
For context: a combined 50 fouls were called between the two teams, with 29 going against NCC. The officials were calling little things all game, though in fairness, the Cardinals did get some calls to go their way. Two things stick out in my mind though:
- Early in the second half, Alex Sorenson picks up his third foul of the game on offense. There was absolutely no reason to call a foul on that particular play; he didn't lower his shoulder, the defender didn't fall, nothing. It was bad. Then, down at the other end after Erwin Henry picked up his third foul, Sorenson was trying to establish defensive position down low, and was called for his fourth foul in doing so. That one was absolutely inexcusable, and forced Sorenson to sit down for a good ten minutes or so. NCC kept the lead for much of the game during this stretch, but St. Olaf was able to mound a comeback with arguably NCC's best player on the bench.
- This one is a point of contention. St. Olaf took a 69-67 lead following a pair of free throws off of Jagger Anderson's fifth foul. North Central went right back down and got an Alex Sorenson layup to tie the game at 69 with 2:48 left. Suddenly, at 2:40, the NCC bench is whistled for a technical foul. I went back to watch this portion multiple times to try and catch what happened, but it's unclear. Based on Todd Raridon's body language, he may have been looking for a foul on the Sorenson layup, but sources at the game report that Raridon was actually calling for his team to get back on defense. If the former is true, it's arguably a horrible call by the officials unless Raridon had been warned earlier in the game, which is unclear, because I have heard far worse go uncalled during multiple of my 27 games at the scorers' table in Naperville this winter. If the latter is true, the officials working the game need to be fired for gross incompetence and the NCAA needs to issue an apology immediately to Coach Raridon, the team, and the school as a whole for a miscarriage of justice.
Now, at the end of the day, I am going to go back to my standard stance on situations like this, and regular readers of COAS know this well: in almost every game, the officials do not determine the outcome. I'm convinced that this is the case with North Central; the Cardinals had multiple key turnovers late in the game with the outcome still up in the air, including Sorenson bouncing a ball off his leg on a fast break and Jayme Moten getting called for a travel with six seconds left, though I'm not 100 percent sold that he did travel. Moten also struggled shooting all game, with his lone points coming on a 35 foot prayer with less than a second to go. Erwin Henry also picked up his fifth foul with 39 seconds left with the Cardinals up one on a dumb reach in. So, needless to say, the refs didn't decide the outcome with NCC having some miscues involved. I think it's more than fair though to ream the officiating for being all around bad in this game and, at least to small degree, having more of an impact that officials should. I am in no way demanding a reversal of the result, as such would set a bad precedent, and the Cardinals had their opportunities despite the deck probably being stacked against them.
At the end of the day, the Cardinals close out the 2015-16 season with a 19-8 mark, including a 12-2 record in the CCIW, good for second place. In fact, there was a stretch from December 7 through February 25 where the Cardinals went 17-3, with their losses coming to #1 Augustana twice, and #2 Benedictine, both of whom are hosting Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games this coming weekend. It's a successful season for a program that began the year well outside the Top 25 and picked to finish fourth in the CCIW. It's especially successful when you see that the Cardinals faced the toughest schedule in the country to get to that point.
They had a ton of pieces that made this season possible, including three who were named All-CCIW players. First and foremost is the aforementioned Alex Sorenson, who posted 15.3 points per game on 53/40/53 shooting splits while adding 7.7 rebounds per game and a program record 59 blocks en route to a unanimouns First Team selection. We also saw the swift development of Freshman of the Year and Second Team player Connor Raridon, who added 13.2 points on 49/36/78 shooting splits and chipped in 6.7 rebounds a game as well as 109 assists. They also got key plays all year from Third Team selection Jayme Moten who averaged 10.4 points on 40/39/89 shooting splits, including a perfect 14 game stretch in CCIW play from the line. The Cardinals also got key contributions from senior forward Kevin Honn, who might have been Sixth Man of the Year if the CCIW awarded it for his 10.5 points on 53/39/83 shooting splits in addition to 5.2 rebounds per game.
North Central had several other people contribute in big ways. Sophomore Erwin Henry emerged as a major force in the coming years with 9.0 points per game on 53/43/78 shooting splits while starting all but the first six games, while Jagger Anderson has the starting point guard job nailed down following a year with 8.9 points per game on 41 percent shooting to go with 101 assists in 27 games. The bench was further solidified by guards Aiden Chang (5.6 points per game on 40/41/74 shooting splits) and Jaquan Phipps (2.1 points per game on 37 percent shooting). There will be some forward depth to look ahead to next year with a year of experience for Jeremy Ireland (1.1 points and 1.7 rebounds per game in 19 contests) and Jack Bronec (2 points and 8 rebounds in 10 games).
All in all, next year's team will be returning almost everyone, losing only a few seniors to graduation. It will be hard to replace the instant offense provided by Jayme Moten and the energy brought by Kevin Honn, but the other four starters and a total of six of the eight main contributors from this year's team will take their experience into the summer and come back in the fall ready to go.
Early rumblings amongst CCIW fans has the Cardinals as the early favorite to top the CCIW next year along with North Park. Of course, with a full offseason to go, anything can happen. I wish the ride could have lasted a little bit longer for fans in Naperville, but we got a taste. Next year's team should be even better, and I look forward to being back to be a part of it!
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