By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Thomas More’s fifth-seeded men defended terrifically in a 66-44 win over No. 12 seed Eastern Oregon Tuesday, advancing to a second-round game in the NAIA basketball tournament. The win advanced TMU (23-8) to a 9 p.m. ET matchup with host Montana Tech, the No. 4 seed, after Tech knocked off Westmont of California, 83-69.
“I didn’t see it going this way,” TMU Coach Justin Ray. “I thought that team (Eastern Oregon) was too talented offensively for us to do that. They were one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country, averaging more than 10 a game and we held them to four.”
For special praise, Ray singled out point guard Jacob Jones, who held Westmont’s conference MVP and leading scorer to six points while scoring 18. Reid Jolly led TMU with 22 points while grabbing six rebounds.
Back healthy for his third game after missing a month with a foot injury, 6-foot-9 senior Noah Pack scored 12 points with team-high totals of nine rebounds and four assists. Also back for his first game since being injured five weeks ago, Casey George grabbed eight rebounds.
The Saints shot 45.3 percent (24-53) from the field, 35.7 percent (five of 14) from the three-point line, and 81.3 percent (13-16) from the free throw line.
TMU led by 34-12 at halftime and didn’t really look back. But Wednesday night’s opponent is a different story. Host Montana Tech is 16-0 at home this season. “It’s a hornet’s nest,” Ray said of the Tech arena. “It’s packed, maybe just a bit bigger than ours.”
Looking at Tech, Ray said, “They’re a really good team. They’d win a lot of games in the Mid-South Conference.”
But coming from a Mid-South Conference “where we got beat up,” Ray says, “I look at as a positive.” As it was Tuesday the way the Saints came out on defense.
“Last year, we could make mistakes on defense, we were so good on offense, averaging 80 points a game,” Ray said. Not so this year without Ryan Batte, as good a player as there was in the NAIA in 2022. “We can’t afford to make mistakes on defense,” Ray said, without the margin for error that Batte gave them on the way to a trip in the Final Four.
As far as getting back to Kansas City with a win, Ray said “I think it’s more of a reward for this group to represent Thomas More nationally. The way I look at postseason basketball, you’ve already accomplished what you have in the regular season.”
This is just a bonus.
Coming from the MSC, despite the roughing up TMU got this year, “I look at that as a positive,” Ray said. He’s reminded what a longtime MSC coach had told him. When you get to the NAIA tournament out of the MSC, “you will not see anything you haven’t seen.”
So it’ll be TMU, a few parents and a fan or two who made the full-day trip through Houston to Bozeman, Montana, then a couple-hour bus ride to this spectacular mining town where a packed gym and a team that hasn’t lost there, awaits.
“It’s beautiful here,” Ray says, “although I could do without all the snow.”
BOX SCORE
EASTERN OREGON 12 32–44
THOMAS MORE 34 32–66
EASTERN OREGON (21-11): Malatare 6, Huddleston 6, Chandler 6, Taylor 6, Valdez 3. Afework 8, Jeske 6, Orr 3, Dill 0, McGinnis 0, TOTAL: 44.
THOMAS MORE (23-8): Jolly 22, Jomes 18, Pack 12, Vieth 8, George 2, Ross 2, Smith 2, Smith 0, Scott 0, Haubner 0, TOTAL: 66.