By: Con Marshall
While this weekend’s trips will be the shortest because they are playing Black Hills State in Spearfish and South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City, from now on the Chadron State basketball teams will primarily be road warriors.
Seven of the Eagles’ final nine games will be away from the friendly confines of the Chicoine Center. After this weekend, the CSC teams will repay the visits to several of the teams that have trekked to Chadron recently.
The Eagles will travel to Colorado School of Mines and Colorado-Colorado Springs the weekend of Feb. 8 and 9, be at home the following weekend to host their South Dakota rivals, then travel to CSU-Pueblo and New Mexico Highlands on Feb 22 and 23 and conclude the regular season at MSU Denver on March 1.
College basketball has the reputation for generally favoring home teams. CSC Men’s Coach Houston Reed said that doesn’t need to happen.
“As far as I know, the length of the floors and the size of the baskets are all about the same,” Reed said. He added that he believes veteran teams like his that includes five seniors and three juniors, all of whom began their college careers at other places and transferred to CSC, have the experience that helps them combat road weariness, new surroundings and even potentially hostile environments.
The men’s game at Black Hills State on Friday night will be an important one. Both are 8-5 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, tying them with Colorado Mesa for fifth place in the standings. The Yellow Jackets are 9-8 overall for the season and the Eagles are 10-9.
The Yellow Jackets snapped a five-game losing skid last weekend by defeating New Mexico Highlands 81-70 and Colorado State-Pueblo 94-79 in Spearfish. Chadron State had toppled both of those teams the previous weekend on its home court.
The Jackets’ leader is 6-foot-6 senior Fraser Malcolm with a 17.6 scoring average, 10th best in the RMAC. He’s an efficient shooter, hitting 53.7 percent overall from the field, including 37 of 82 (45.1 percent) from three-point range, has made 47 of 57 free throws.
Malcolm tallied 27 points against both of last weekend’s opponents and earned the RMAC’s Offensive Player of the Week honor. A native of Scotland, Malcomb is one of five players from foreign nations on the Black Hills roster.
Another major threat for Coach Ryan Thompson is Dez Stoudamire, who has sunk 45 three-pointers while averaging 11.1 points.
The South Dakota Mines men are 8-13 for the season and 5-8 in the RMAC. Coached by CSC graduate and a former Eagles’ basketball player Eric Glenn, they undoubtedly are still entertaining thoughts of squeezing into the conference’s Shootout. Roger Trennpohl, another CSC grad and a former Alliance High hoops mentor, is Glenn’s primary assistant.
The Hardrockers have three players averaging in double figures, led by Allec Williams, a 5-11 junior who is scoring at a 13.1-point clip. Logan Elers, a 6-7 New Zealand native, is shooting 56 percent from the field and averaging 11.6 points and 6.3 rebounds.
Elers earned the RMAC Defensive Player of the Week award after grabbing 31 rebounds last weekend as the Hardrockers defeated Pueblo, but lost to Highlands.
The Black Hills State women have not lived up to full expectations this season. After returning 14 players from last year’s 24-9 team, they were tabbed as the team to beat in the RMAC during the coaches’ preseason poll in October, but are 11-6 overall and 7-6 in the conference.
The Lady Jackets got off to a 5-1 start in the conference, losing only in overtime 92-89 to Westminster. More since then they have won just two of their seven games, beating Colorado-Colorado Springs and New Mexico Highlands.
Coach Mark Nore’s scoring leader is 6-1 sophomore Morgan Ham at 14.3 points. Senior guard Julia Seamans is next at 10.4 per game, and has hit 41 3-pointers, one-third of the team’s total.
The South Dakota Mines women are 6-11 for the season and 3-10 in the conference. Their only senior, Taylor Molstad, a 5-10 Rapid City product, is the scoring leader at 11.5 points. She was tabbed the RMAC Offensive Player of the Week after shooting about 65 percent from the field and scoring 41 points in two games last weekend.
Next is Sami Steffeck, a 5-10 junior, who is averaging 10.2 points. Another junior, 5-11 Anna Haugen, is fourth in the RMAC in rebounding at 7.8 a game, the same as her scoring average.
The Lady Rockers are second in the conference in free throw shooting at 72.8 percent. The Chadron State women improved their free throw marksmanship last weekend by making 32 of 35 charity shots and are shooting 67.7 percent at the line for the season.
Long before this weekend’s foes were in the RMAC, they were playing basketball against one another. Records indicate that after Chadron State’s first basketball team in 1921-22 defeated Chadron High 24-17, but lost to Alliance High 17-15, it romped past Black Hills State 31-15 and nipped South Dakota Tech (now Mines) 27-26.
Chadron State leads Black Hills 120-75 and Mines 128-71 entering this year’s matchups. But both of the South Dakota teams have had the upper hand in recent years. Black Hills has a 9-3 lead in the last 12 games and Mines is 6-2 since the series was resumed in 2013-2014.
The Chadron State women’s program was begun 1973. Two years later, both Mines and Black Hills were on the Eagles’ schedule. Chadron State owns a 39-22 margin over the Yellow Jackets and 34-25 over the Hardrockers.
Black Hills has won 11 of the last 12 games versus the Lady Eagles and Mines has a 6-2 margin since 2013-14.