SPOKANE, Wash. –Whitworth University men's basketball will spend Thanksgiving in Colorado at the Rocky Mountain Classic, hosted by Colorado College. The Pirates will open the tournament on Friday night (7:30 pm CT) against Carleton (Minn.). Whitworth will play either the host Tigers or Carroll (Wis.) on Saturday, depending on the outcome of Friday's contests. The games can be heard live in Spokane on KSBN 1230 am and on the internet at KSBN.net.
Check the Whitworth men's basketball schedule for live links to this weekend's games.
The Pirates: Whitworth (2-2) evened its 2022-23 record with a 71-56 win over California Lutheran on Tuesday night. The Pirates ran away early, opening up a 46-22 lead at halftime thanks to 62.5% shooting in the first period. The lead reached 29 points five minutes into the second half and remained in the mid-to-high 20's until the final five minutes of the game when the Kingsmen began to chip away. Jake Holtz posted his first career double-double with 21 points and 11 rebounds. JT McDermott scored 13 and grabbed six boards. Rowan Anderson finished with ten points. Whitworth finished the game 31-55 (56.4%) from the floor and 8-24 (33.3%) from the three-point line. The Pirates had an uncharacteristically rough night at the free throw line (1-6).
The Opponents: Carleton College is 1-0 so far this season after opening with an 84-77 road win at Bethel (Minn.) on November 16th. The Knights, members of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletics Conference, are coming off a strong 16-7 record in 2021-22, including a 13-5 mark in the MIAC. Senior forward Jeremy Beckler was a first team All-MIAC and second team All-Region honoree last season. Luke Harris, who made honorable mention All-MIAC as a freshman last winter, led the Knights with 24 points against Bethel. Whitworth's only other game against Carleton came at this same tournament in 2013. The Pirates defeated the Knights 70-61.
The Other Half: The other half of the Rocky Mountain Classic bracket features Colorado College and Carroll (Wis.).
Colorado College is 2-2 this season. The Tigers recently split at the Midway Classic in Chicago, defeating the host Maroons 69-67 on a last-second shot, but dropping a heartbreaker to Colby 66-64 in the next game. CC is coming off a 7-18 record in 2021-22, which included a 5-11 mark in the Southern Collegiate Athletics Conference. Sophomore C Adrian Price made the SCAC All-Freshman team last season. Freshman guard Dinari Boykin leads the Tigers this season with averages of 12.5 points and 6.0 rebounds. Whitworth hosted Colorado College last season and won 80-61.
Carroll University is a member of the powerful Collegiate Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin. The Pioneers are 1-4 so far this season and finished 7-18 overall and 3-13 in the CCIW last year. Sophomore guard Aaron Wafford was the 2022 CCIW first-year Player of the Year. Fellow sophomore Kobe Simpson currently leads the team in scoring (13.0 ppg). Whitworth and Carroll have never played in men's basketball.
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 392-82 (.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 201-21 (.905) at home. Whitworth has won its last 22 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 open Northwest Conference play on December 2-3 at Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran.
