Bison drop final game before tourney

PABLO - The Salish Kootenai College mens' basketball team closed out the regular season last Friday night with a close loss.

Against Northwest Indian College, the Bison fell 101-93 in what head coach Zachary Camel called an "off-night".

"It was a close game, a tough game," he said. "[NWIC] has a lot of height and ability."

During the back and forth game, the Bison struggled to play team defense.

"We could stop their good one-on-one playing," he said. "Our team didn't do a lot of team defense. We would watch another guy's player dribble by us."

At the half, SKC was down 47-43, but couldn't seem to grasp the lead for good.

"We came out a little slow [in the second half]," Camel said. "They built a lead and we started to press."

Offensively, Camel didn't know what was going on with his team's shots.

"We didn't have a normal number of assists," he said. "We were really off."

Gus McDonald led with 19 points and Sonny Eppinett added 18. James Bible recorded eight rebounds.

On Sunday's practice, the team seemed to have moved on from its loss, Camel said.

"They practiced hard," he said. "I don't know if they had finals or other things on their mind. I know I had Polson [boys' basketball team] on mine. It was just a bad game."

Heading into the American Indian Higher Education Consortium tournament, Browning Community College, who beat NWIC earlier this season, will be SKC's biggest opponent.

"We look forward to this," he said. "I'm not too excited yet, but we are on the right track."

The plan for SKC is to implement and follow through with the strategy. Perez said traveling to a higher elevation won't matter, as his team is in the right shape.

"Our conditioning should pay off," he said. "This team is stronger than any other team we've had."