SPOKANE, Wash. – The Whitworth University men's basketball team finishes off final exams week with a home non-conference game against Schreiner University on Friday night at 7:00 pm. The game can be heard live in Spokane on KSBN 1230 am and on the internet at KSBN.net.
Masks are required for all fans in the Whitworth Fieldhouse, regardless of vaccination status. Fans unable to attend can check out the Whitworth men's basketball schedule for live links for the games.
The Pirates: Whitworth (8-1), ranked 13th in the most recent D3hoops.com poll, defeated Colorado College 80-61 last Sunday in the Whitworth Fieldhouse. Rowan Anderson scored a season-high 22 points to lead the Pirates. He went 6-9 from the field, including 4-7 from three-point range, and made all six of his free throws. JT McDermott added 15 points and four assists, while Jordan Lester scored a dozen and Liam Fitzgerald finished with 11 points. Whitworth made 52% (26-50) of its field goals and 82.6% (19-23) from the free throw line. The Bucs committed only ten turnovers, allowing them to offset a 31-28 rebounding deficit.
Share and Share Alike: Whitworth leads the Northwest Conference (and ranks 7th in all of DIII) in assists per game in 2021-22, averaging 19.9 per game. In the season opener the Pirates set a team record for assists in a single game (47) in a win over Greenville. Individually, Jordan Lester leads the NWC in assists per game (6.6) and three Whitworth players rank among the top eight with JT McDermott seventh (3.3) and Rowan Anderson eighth (3.1).
Finding Balance: Whitworth had very balanced scoring in 2020-21. In 17 games, the Pirates had four players average between 11.2 and 12.6 points per game, and all are back this season. That trend has continued in 2021-22. Five Whitworth regulars are averaging between 11.0 and 12.3 points per game. JT McDermott leads (12.3 ppg), followed by Miguel Lopez (11.6), Garrett Paxton (11.4), Liam Fitzgerald (11.2), and Jordan Lester (11.0). Five players have led the team in scoring in a game this season.
The Opponents: Schreiner University is 2-7 this season, but the record does not indicate how competitive the Mountaineers have been. Located in Kerrville, Texas, Schreiner has been close in all but one loss, with five of the losses coming by less than ten points. Like last week's opponent (Colorado College), the Mountaineers are members of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC). They opened league play on December 4th with a overtime loss to 7-1 Trinity. On December 7th Schreiner lost 65-62 at Texas Lutheran. Marwen Elrakabawy is in his third season as head coach. Senior guard Alex Dehoyos is having an All-Conference kind of start to his final year, averaging 16.9 points, 5.1 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 2.8 steals per game. First-year forward Kamden Ross adds 11.7 points while making 64% of his field goals and leads the team in rebounding (7.4). Whitworth won the only previous meeting between the schools 87-63 on November 26, 2016 in Spokane.
D3hoops.com Poll: The Pirates are ranked 13th in the latest (Dec. 13) D3hoops.com top 25 regular season poll of 2021-22.
Whitworth has appeared in the D3hoops.com top-25 poll 175 times since it was created during the 1999-00 season. Very few teams have appeared in the rankings more than Whitworth has. Heading into 2021-22, the Pirates were eighth on the list among schools ranked in the top-25 the most times.
1. Wooster 249
2. UW-Stevens Point 240
3. Amherst 234
4. Washington U. 203
5. St. Thomas 199
6. UW-Whitewater 194
7. Augustana 185
8. Whitworth 172
9. Williams 171
10. Illinois Wesleyan 164
Over the poll's 20-year history, 32 programs have reached the top spot at least once. UW-Stevens Point has reached that spot in seven different seasons. Whitworth has been there in two seasons: 2010-11 and 2015-16.
20=15: With its win at Whitman on February 20, 2020, Whitworth extended its school record for consecutive seasons with at least 20 victories to 15 in a row. Prior to this current streak, the most 20-win seasons in a row the Pirates had ever had was two (on three different occasions). The NCAA statistics office is granting waivers for streak records that were interrupted by Covid-19 in 2020-21.
Only Wooster (Ohio), with 24, has a longer run of consecutive 20-win seasons in NCAA Division III men's basketball.
Best of the Decade: Whitworth University concluded the decade of 2010-11 through 2019-20 as the winningest program in NCAA Division III men's basketball, by winning percentage. The Pirates posted a record of 245-43 for a winning percentage of .851. In addition, Whitworth's winning percentage ranked fourth among the top schools in all of NCAA basketball, behind West Liberty (Div. II - .895), Lincoln Memorial (Div. II - .874) and Gonzaga (Div. I - .858). Two of the winningest men's basketball teams in the nation are located within six miles of each other.
The decade included three head coaches for the Pirates, beginning with Jim Hayford in 2010-11, continuing with Matt Logie for eight seasons and concluding with Damion Jablonski in 2019-20.
More Than A Decade of Dominance: Since the beginning of the 2005-06 season (over 15 seasons) the Pirates are 376-76 (.832), an amazing run of success matched by few other college teams at any level. Within the Northwest Conference, Whitworth has won 185 of its last 206 (.897).
Home-Sweet-Home: Whitworth has been stellar in the Whitworth Fieldhouse since the 1990's. During the decade of the 1990s and 2000's Whitworth won more than 84% of its home games. However, since the beginning of the 2005-06 season, the Bucs are 192-21 (.901) at home.
The Pirates have had two home-court winning streaks of more than 40 games since 1990. A 41-game home court winning streak from early 2009 until December of 2011 was the second-longest in Pirate history. The school record for consecutive home victories is 43, beginning during the 1994-95 season and ending during the 1997-98 season.
Road Warriors: As good as Whitworth is at home, the Pirates have been almost as good away from the Whitworth Fieldhouse over the last decade. Since the start of the 11-12 season, Whitworth is 106-25 (.809) away from home, 78-19 (.804) in true road games.
On the Air Again: Whitworth's men's basketball games are once again carried live this season on KSBN 1230am in Spokane. The relationship between Pirate athletics and KSBN goes back to 1994, a span of more than 25 years. Bud Nameck is in his seventh season as the voice of Whitworth basketball. Nameck has more than 30 years of experience calling college basketball at Gonzaga University and Washington State.
The Coach: Damion Jablonski is in his 11th season on the Pirate coaching staff in 2020-21, and his third as head coach of the Pirates. He is currently 37-11 as Whitworth's head coach. His first year was a rousing success. He went 23-6, led the Pirates to a share of the Northwest Conference championship and to a pair of victories in the NCAA Division III tournament. The Bucs were slated to face top-ranked Swarthmore before the tournament was cancelled. Jablonski was named D3hoops.com West Region Coach of the Year and he coached Ben College to NWC Player of the Year and NABC All-America recognition. Whitworth went 12-5 during the COVID-19 season in 2020-21, including games against NCAA DI Montana, NCAA DII Seattle Pacific and NAIA playoff regular College of Idaho.
Jablonski spent eight years as the top assistant at Whitworth, including six seasons with the title of Associate Head Coach. Over the course of his tenure as an assistant, the Bucs won 215 games, seven Northwest Conference titles and seven NWC tournament crowns. As the head recruiting coordinator, Jablonski was instrumental in continuing the Bucs' tradition of success by helping to recruit high quality student-athletes to Whitworth. His efforts over the past several years have included the addition of First Team All-American Kyle Roach, third team All-American and NWC Player of the Year Kenny Love and First Team All Northwest Conference selection Christian Jurlina.
Coming Up Next: Whitworth will take a break for the Christmas holiday before returning to host Wisconsin-River Falls in a non-conference game on December 30th.
