By DOUG IRELAND
OLATHE, Kan. – The LSUA men’s basketball team is on a roll entering the NAIA Men’s Basketball Championships, beginning tonight.
Their opponent, Bethel (Indiana), is not.
But the Pilots (19-10), losers of four of their last five games, have a credential the Generals (24-6) crave. Bethel was nationally ranked last month, and owns a win over then No. 6-ranked Georgetown (Ky.). LSUA sits just outside the final NAIA Top 25 poll, receiving 58 points in voting to rank tops among the others receiving votes.
The Generals, champions of the Red River Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament, are seeded sixth in the Cramer Quadrant of the NAIA Tournament. They will face No. 11 Bethel at 6 p.m. tonight.
The winner will play either No. 3-seeded MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.) or 14th-seeded Central (Ark.) Baptist in the regional final Saturday evening at 6. MidAmerica Nazarene is ranked 10th nationally with a 24-4 record.
No. 2 seed Oklahoma Wesleyan and No. 7 seed Hastings (Neb.) are the top seeds in the Wichita regional that feeds its winner against the Olathe survivor in the quandrant semifinal the following week.
Tonight’s game should be fast-paced. Both teams average 85 points per game. LSUA shoots a solid 48 percent but Bethel is even better at 51 percent as a team.
The Generals’ first-year coach, Dimaro Jackson, was the RRAC Coach of the Year after moving up from Port Allen High School last year. Junior guard Kashie Natt won RRAC Player of the Year honors by averaging 17.3 points, second in the conference, and leading the league with a 10.2 rebounding rate.
Senior guard JD Allen led the RRAC with an 18.1 scoring average, and grabbed 6.6 rebounds per game, earning first-team all-conference honors. Alexandria junior Jason Perry II scored 11.3 per game and was a second-team All-RRAC pick. Isaiah Howard was the co-Freshman of the Year in the conference.
The Pilots are led by former Incarnate Word three-year starter Drew Lutz, a 6-1 senior guard who is second nationally with a 24.6 scoring rate. He has made 165 free throws, sinking 86 percent. He leads four teammates with double-figure scoring averages.
Bethel has only one win since mid-February. LSUA has won its last seven. The Pilots have a 12-5 record away from The Fort, their homecourt.