An up-and-down season all came down to the Nanooks at the mercy of a television screen.
Last Sunday the University of Alaska Fairbanks men's basketball team found themselves anxiously tuned in to the NCAA Division II Tournament selection show, hoping their name would pop up as one of 64 invited to March Madness.
It never did, and thus their 17-10 season was suddenly over.
After riding a roller coaster all year - UAF beat five teams who received NCAA tournament bids, but lost to the UAF Alumni as well as the last-place team in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference - the season bottomed out as the Nanooks were denied a chance to repeat its Sweet 16 performance of the previous two tournaments.
"In the big picture we did a lot of wonderful things this year," second-year Coach
Frank Ostanik said on Thursday.
But achievements such as their fourth-place finish at the Top of the World Classic, 14-5 start, and thrilling win at a raucous Patty Center over Alaska-Anchorage didn't take the sting away from narrowly missing out on the 8th seed for the NCAA West Regional Tournament that begins Friday. That spot instead went to Central Washington, with whom UAF tied for fifth place in the GNAC at 10-8. But the Wildcats scored higher than UAF in four of six tiebreaker categories to gain the tournament nod despite their 15-12 record, the worst of any team making the entire tourney.
"It's bitter, but in the end we controlled our own destiny," said Ostanik. "The most disappointing thing is we were very close."
So close that had UAF pulled out just one of a handful of winnable games - they failed to hold sizable second-half leads against last-place St. Martin's, conference champion Seattle-Pacific and at UAA on Feb. 25 - it would be playing in the West Regional hosted by Seattle-Pacific.
Or so close that had Tarleton State merely been located in California (instead of Texas), UAF's win Dec. 17 over the then-No. 2 team in Division II would have swung the West Region record tiebreaker, and thus the tournament bid, UAF's way (Central Washington won that tiebreaker with a .583 winning percentage to UAF's .571).
Or so close that had arch-rival UAA beaten Central Washington at home in their penultimate game of the season, or failed to pull out a 99-95 win over Western Washington in their GNAC finale, the Seawolves or Wildcats would be staying home instead.
But unlike 2004-05, when UAF finished 21-9 overall and as co-GNAC champions at 13-5, the Nanooks left doubt as to their tournament worthiness, and this time the number crunchers and Big Dance announcers were unkind.
Considering the departure to graduation of North Pole's
Brad Oleson (Noyaster Rosalia-LEB 2), the most dominant player in UAF history and a 2004-05 First Team All-American, the 2005-06 season began with uncertainty. Not only would the Nanooks miss his leadership, they'd have to replace his 24.4 points of scoring per game.
For leadership the Nanooks instead relied on their three seniors, 6-7
Justin Bourne (Fairbanks, AK/Lathrop HS), 6-8
Andrew Smith (Anchorage, AK/Bartlett HS) and 6-8 Serbian
Ivan Miskovic (Belgrade, Serbia/Monroe Catholic HS), Alaska high school graduates all.
The emergence of sophomore wingmen
Kenny Barker (San Diego, CA/Clairemont HS) and
Chris Jordan(Houston, TX/Milby HS) helped pick up the scoring slack, while newcomers Jonathan Osborne (Las Vegas, NV/UNLV) and freshman point guard
Auston Autry (Los Angeles, CA/Dominguez HS) helped bring stability to the backcourt.
Role players such as Fairbanks'
Mike Titus (Fairbanks, AK/Lathrop HS) and
Alec Von Tellrop (Novato, CA/Marian Catholic HS/San Fransisco CC) also chipped in.
The combination helped UAF beat Montana State and Kennesaw State at the Top of the World Classic in November and reel off four straight conference wins - culminated by Jordan's 35 points and seven 3-pointers against Seattle University on Feb. 2 - en route to a 14-5 overall record.
Then UAF hit a rough patch, starting with a 90-83 loss at last-place Saint Martin's after leading by 16 points in the second half. Home losses to Seattle-Pacific (UAF was up 13 points with 10:38 remaining before SPU hit a multitude of 3-pointers while the Nanooks struggled with free throws and turnovers) and eighth-place Northwest Nazarene followed.
Then after a loss Feb. 16 at Humboldt State, UAF's tournament aspirations (at 14-9, 7-7) were in serious jeopardy. But the Nanooks, behind Barker's 23 points, rebounded to win 82-76 at Western Oregon, setting up a trio of games (at UAA, then home to Central Washington and Western Washington) that would determine its post-season fate.
With intensity befitting of rivals, the Nanooks led UAA 38-30 at halftime. But aided by poor UAF free throw shooting, UAA charged back to take the lead for good with 3:13 remaining and claim an 84-73 victory. UAF then played inspired ball in knocking off Western Washington 85-79 and Central Washington 90-77, though the wins turned out to be too little, too late.
At the end of the season, "I was pleased with how we handled adversity," Ostanik said. "We executed well down the stretch."
UAF's strengths this season were its scoring and rebounding ability, said Ostanik. The Nanooks averaged 80.1 points per game, shot 49.6 percent from the field and outrebounded their opponents by 2.9 per game. But UAF couldn't overcome its struggles in taking care of the basketball (it averaged 16.7 turnovers per game), was weak on its defense in the paint, and had costly lapses at the free throw line, said Ostanik.
Bourne, a playmaker forward and local fan favorite from Lathrop High School, earned second-team All-GNAC honors by starting every game and averaging 5.1 assists and 7.9 points per game. Smith, UAF's second leading scorer at 15.8 ppg plus 7.3 rebounds per game, was awarded GNAC honorable mention.
Jordan, meanwhile, led the Nanooks with 16.4 points per game and 62 3-pointers. Barker caught fire late in the season to chip in 12.6 ppg. Osborne started 23 games averaging 6.7 ppg. Autry took over as starting point guard the final four games and averaged 4.8 ppg. Miskovic closed out his career as a valuable man off the bench averaging 7.5 ppg.
Ostanik calls Jordan and Barker "two of the best wings in the league." UAF's challenging off-season mission now is to recruit three frontline players as well as another point guard.
UAF, which was a hapless 4-23 just five years ago, has become a victim of its own success, in that a 17-10 record without a post-season is simply no longer good enough.
"We're 81-34 our last four years, that's a testament to how far our program has come," Ostanik said.
How it all shook out:
A breakdown of the non-subjective formula used to determine whether Central Washington or UAF would receive the No. 8 Western Region tournament bid:
1) Division II won-loss record -
UAF 13-9, .591 winning percentage, CWU 14-11, .560
2) Division II quality win index -
UAF wins
3) Division II strength of schedule - CWU wins
4) Regional won-loss record -
UAF 12-9, .571; CWU 14-10, .583
5) Regional quality win index - CWU wins
6) Regional strength of schedule - CWU wins
Note: strength of schedule is based only on who the opponents are, not one's performance against them; UAF's strength of schedule suffered in that non-conference opponents such as BYU-Hawaii (14-11), Cal State Stanislaus (14-13) and Chico State (8-18) had average or sub par seasons. Also, games against Division I opponents, unlike past seasons, are no longer tabulated.
CWU won the above criteria 4-2; had the schools split 3-3, then head-to-head competition would have been considered (the teams split two games) followed by the following four tiebreakers:
1) Record vs. common opponents -
UAF wins
2) Record vs. ranked teams -
UAF wins
3) Record vs. teams above .500 -
UAF wins
4) Record vs. teams below .500 - CWU wins
