Knights Battle Coyotes in Men's Basketball Championship Game
LA GRANDE, Ore. – The Cascade Collegiate Conference 2017-18 Men’s Basketball Championships presented by U.S. Bank concludes tonight with Warner Pacific at The College of Idaho.
The game will be broadcast live on ROOT SPORTS tonight at 7:06 p.m. PST/8:06 p.m. MST. Fans can use the Channel Finder at rootsports.com to find the channel in their area on cable or satellite television. The game will also be available on all digital platforms for ROOT SPORTS subscribers. The network reaches approximately 3.2 million households across five states (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska),
No. 2 Warner Pacific (23-8, 15-5 CCC) at No. 1 College of Idaho (26-6, 18-2 CCC)
8:06 p.m. MST – Caldwell, Idaho- J.A. Albertson Event Center
Top-seeded and regular season champion The College of Idaho will be at home as they host two-seed Warner Pacific University. It will be a matchup of the No. 4 (CI) and No. 13 (WPU) ranked teams in the NAIA.
On Saturday CI hosted Southern Oregon University in one semifinal matchup of the tournament and came away with a 67-50 win. It was the second time in a span of eight days that the Yotes held SOU to 50 points which was 33.7 points below their average of 83.7 per game. Balanced scoring helped secure the win with Talon Pinckney and Roosevelt Adams each scoring 14 points. Aziz Leeks added 13 points and seven boards.
Despite poor shooting and a plethora of turnovers, CI clawed their way out of a double digit deficit to defeat a Northwest team 62-56 in their quarterfinal contest. Pinckney scored a game-high 19 points, including a career-high six 3-pointers to lead CI. Leeks was held to just three points but had 14 rebounds.
Warner Pacific’s Collin Malcolm scored 23 points to lead the Knights past Northwest Christian 95-81 on Wednesday in their quarterfinal game. Brandon Bell, coming off the bench, adding 18 points and seven rebounds in the win.
WPU rallied from an 11 point deficit to edge Oregon Tech, 73-72, in their semifinal game. Xavier Cannefax finished with a game-high 19 points, with Malcom (16) and De'Jon Bowman (12) adding double figure scoring.
College of Idaho won both matchups of the year with a 76-56 win in January and a 64-55 victory on the second to last weekend of regular season play.
Both teams have already secured automatic berths in the NAIA Men’s Basketball National Championship representing the Cascade Conference. The NAIA men’s tournament is being held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota March 7-13.