Lady Bison prepared for second half of 2017 season

By JASON BLASCO

Lake County Leader

Salish Kootenai College women’s basketball coach Juan Perez stated that he is pleased with how his team responded to the first half of its schedule.

The Lady Bison’s record headed into the break is 7-2.

“I think we actually came along pretty quick with the team and I am pretty happy with where we finished at the first half of the season,” Perez said. “Our two losses came against Montana Tech and the second time they brought down three varsity players after we defeated them the day before by 30. I thought we played stronger.”

SKC will face another transition headed into the second half of their season when they play tribal colleges.

“During the second half of the season, we will play a lot against tribal colleges,” Perez said. “They have a different style of basketball. Their offense is a lot more run and gun and they have good shooters. We are looking to get stronger defensively, and we have to be able to contain players and refine our offense.”

According to Perez, SKC will now run its “horn offense” against the tribal colleges in the second half of the season.

“We went to our foreign offense and haven’t run this kind of offense before,” Perez said. “We have to give players kind of a parameter to work within. Given certain places to start out, it’s them reading the defense. Whatever the defense does, we kind of counter that. This really challenges us to be basketball players and not robots when it comes to our offense.”

Perez said operating this kind of offense gives the Lady Bison’s offense “more flexibility.”

“One thing we liked about the offense is that it’s harder to scout,” Perez said. “The defense can’t see what they are going to do or when my point guard sets a screen. If my point guard sets a screen off the wing, then the wing player has three options: cut the back door, curl around the screen of the defense, or shoot a 3-point shot.”

After the Lady Bisons host Chief Dull Knife on Jan. 14, they will host Stone Child on Jan. 27.

“Last year, we lost in our Division II championship against Rocky Boy,” Perez said. “That was good for us to see how we are against them. Since they beat us, it’s not like we have to look because we are hunting and we are out to prove ourselves.”

Perez said he looks at the first and the second half as “two different seasons.”

“At the beginning of the season, I kind of look at our season as academic and that we have to prepare for our exam,” Perez said. “Now, we are at midterms and headed towards the finals. Hopefully, the midterms will prepare them for exams. Our practices are class periods, games are quizzes, and our break is the midterm. Our finals will be the Tribal College championship and that will measure how successful we were for the season. We are sitting pretty good and hopefully we can build on that.”