SPOKANE, Wash. –Whitworth University continues the 2022-23 season with a home game against California Lutheran University on Tuesday night at 7:00 pm. The game can be heard live in Spokane on KSBN 1230 am and on the internet at KSBN.net.
Tickets: Digital tickets are required for entrance to the Whitworth Fieldhouse for all fans. Tickets can be purchased in advance using the Hometown Ticketing App. Follow the Tickets link on the schedule for access. Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for senior adults, non-Whitworth students and children. Whitworth students, as well as faculty and staff, get free admission by using an ID number.
The Pirates: Whitworth (1-2) earned its first victory of the season last week with a 73-60 win over Sul Ross State in the home opener on Thursday night. The Pirates never trailed and led by as many as 21 points early in the second half. Four Bucs reached double figures in scoring, led by Michael Smith's 18 points. Rowan Anderson sparked Whitworth in the first half when he scored 14 out of his final total of 15 points. He added five boards and five assists. JT McDermott posted the Pirates' first double-double of the season with 11 points and 11 rebounds, with all of his scoring coming in the second half. Jerry Twenge added 11 points and five assists. Whitworth shot 47% from the field and 41% (11-27) from three-point range. The Pirates finished with a 42-31 edge in rebounding.
The Opponents: Cal Lutheran (1-3) is coming off a split against Northwest Conference opponents in Tacoma over the weekend. The Kingsmen lost 77-76 at Puget Sound in a back and forth game and missed a shot to win the game at the buzzer on Friday night. CLU bounced back for its first victory of the season, 67-62 at Pacific Lutheran on Saturday. The Kingsmen are coming off a 17-9 record in 2021-22, including a 9-7 mark in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletics Conference. CLU is deep and balanced, with ten players regularly appearing in games. Tommy Griffitts (Jr.) averages 12.0 points and 5.3 rebounds, while Desi Burge (So.) contributes 11.0 points and makes 50% of his three-pointers this season. Whitworth last played CLU in November of 2019-20, when the Kingsmen were just starting to rebuild under fourth-year head coach Russell White, and won 105-51 in Spokane.
The Graduates: Whitworth's three graduate students on the 2022-23 roster play significant roles. JT McDermott is back for his final year of eligibility after earning first team All-Northwest Conference recognition in 2021-22 after he averaged 14.2 points, 3.3 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game. Rowan Anderson is in his third season as a starting point guard. He put up 8.9 points and 3.3 assists per game last winter. Michael Smith, a former high school teammate of McDermott, has transferred to Whitworth from Sonoma State (NCAA DII), where he started 47 games in two seasons.
Sweet 16: With its win over Lewis & Clark in the 2021-22 regular season finale, Whitworth extended its school record for consecutive seasons with at least 20 victories to 16 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.
Whitworth's streak of 20-win seasons is now the current longest in all of NCAA Division III.
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 16 seasons) the Pirates are 391-82 (.826), an amazing run of success matched by few other college teams at any level. Within the Northwest Conference, Whitworth has won 198 of its last 222 (.892).
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 200-21 (.905) at home. Whitworth has won its last 21 games 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 108-31 (.777) away from home, 80-23 (.777) 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 eighth 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 12th season on the Pirate coaching staff in 2022-23, and his fourth as head coach of the Pirates. He is currently 58-15 as Whitworth's head coach heading into this season. Jablonski has led Whitworth to the NCAA Division III tournament twice in his previous three years, the only non-tournament year was due to Covid-19. 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. Whitworth finished 22-5 overall and 13-3 in the NWC in 2021-22 to once again share the regular season title before winning the conference tournament.
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 travel to Colorado Springs for a Thanksgiving Weekend tournament at Colorado College. The Pirates will play Carleton (Minn.) on Friday and either host Colorado College or Carroll (Wis.) on Saturday.
