First round of the Gem State’s oldest and ‘best’ collegiate rivalry decided on defense
When Gabriel Murphy scored on a putback with 4 minutes, 40 seconds left in the game, the Northwest Nazarene student section began cheering wildly.
Murphy’s shot wasn’t a game-winner, and the Nighthawks were already in the lead, but NNU men’s basketball coach Paul Rush knew exactly why the 6-foot-9 sophomore’s basket had elicited such an enthusiastic reaction.
“Gabe is the mayor on campus. There’s not a bigger personality or a more loved guy,” Rush said. “He rides around with a speaker strapped over his shoulder on a scooter all over campus playing music. He’ll walk into the dining hall playing music. He’s such a giving personality. He’s friends with everybody. He doesn’t exclude anybody.”
With an honorary mayor on their team, it seemed fitting to see the Nighthawks holding the Mayors’ Cup at the end of the night. Northwest Nazarene outlasted College of Idaho 66-57 in the first round of the United Heritage Insurance Mayors’ Cup on Tuesday at the Johnson Sports Center. The two teams play again Nov. 19 in Caldwell to determine which program gets to keep the trophy until next season in the Gem State’s oldest collegiate rivalry.
“It’s definitely bigger to win the second one,” Rush said. “We’d like to have that trophy. We’ve had it up in the coach’s office on display for the last 365 days, and we’d like to get it back there for the next year.”
Both programs are coming off successful 2018-19 seasons, which only added to the intensity of Tuesday’s game in front of 1,725 fans.
The Yotes (4-1) have made back-to-back appearances in the NAIA Division II national semifinals and were picked to finish second in a preseason poll of the Cascade Conference’s coaches behind Oregon Tech. C of I also checked in at No. 3 in the NAIA Division II Top 25 preseason poll with three starters back in seniors Talon Pinckney (Centennial High), Jake Bruner (Prairie) and Nate Bruneel (Rocky Mountain).
The NCAA Division II Nighthawks (1-0) finished 20-8 last season with an appearance in the GNAC Tournament semifinals. It was the program’s first 20-win season since the school moved to Division II in 2001. Having lost its two leading scorers from a year ago to a Division I program and graduation, NNU was picked to finish seventh in the league’s preseason coaches poll.
The Nighthawks didn’t seem to mind the snub.
“We can’t control that. We can just control what we do,” said NNU redshirt freshman guard Jaylen Fox, who scored a game-high 15 points. “It’s just a chip on our shoulder, honestly, and (we’ll) just get better every day and work to get that ranking up.”
In the 207th meeting between the Canyon County rivals, the Yotes looked to be a step or two ahead of the Nighthawks in the early going. College of Idaho knocked down three 3-pointers in about a 1-minute span and led by 12 points, 23-11, on a Bruneel putback dunk with 12:07 remaining in the first half.
“I think that we were focused on scoring at first in front of our home crowd, you know, we all wanted to get a bucket,” NNU redshirt junior Sam Roth said. “But the defense was the key, and that’s what we had to focus on.”
Once the Nighthawks turned their attention to defense, they began to chip away at the Yotes’ lead. Junior point guard Ezekiel Alley gave NNU its first lead of the game, 36-34, with a coast-to-coast layup just before halftime.
The Nighthawks then held the Yotes to just 20 percent from the floor and 11.8 percent from 3-point range in the second half. The Coyotes took their final lead of the game at 45-42 on a Pinckney layup with 15:18 on the clock before NNU went on a 17-6 run.
But Tuesday’s win will lose its luster if C of I can retake the Mayors’ Cup on its home floor next week. College of Idaho has won six straight against NNU at the J.A. Albertson Activities Center, while the Nighthawks have now won five in a row in Nampa.
College of Idaho was the last team to sweep the home-and-home series, doing so during the 2014-15 season.
“It’s the best college basketball rivalry in Idaho. It’s not even a question,” Rush said. “... It’s such a great experience for our guys to be able to play in it. It’s a huge game, and we treat it like a huge game every year. We gear up for it.”
Notes: Pinckney paced the Coyotes with 13 points, while Bruner, Bruneel and Derek Wadsworth added nine points apiece. ... C of I has 12 Idahoans on its roster, and NNU has five Gem State products. ... Murphy finished with three points and three rebounds in 7 minutes of action off the bench. ... The Nighthawks’ baseball team won the annual tug-of-war game against the C of I baseball team at halftime.
Football: Yotes wrap up regular season
The sixth-ranked College of Idaho football team closes out its Frontier Conference regular-season schedule by hosting Montana State Northern at noon Saturday at Simplot Stadium in Caldwell.
The Yotes (9-0) clinched the league championship with last week’s 38-27 win over Montana Western, simultaneously earning a spot in the 16-team NAIA Football Championship Series, which begins Nov. 23.
A win over Montana State Northern on Saturday would virtually guarantee the Yotes a first-round playoff home game.
The playoff bracket will be released at 5 p.m. Sunday.
