Oggy has not had the best of time against the Vikings of Portland State, but he wasn’t too worried about that. His team had made the Big Sky Conference tournament finals, and if things went their way, they’d be in the tournament. He was going to impress the importance of this game to his Seniors – a chance to get to the dance, to extend their careers – but he didn’t feel that same urgency. This was year 1, and the fact he’d made it this far was gravy. He would make it to the dance, probably win it someday. Maybe he’d only be in Greeley 1-2 more years and he could move to a better mid-major, maybe a conference with multiple bids. Now he was getting ahead of himself. He hadn’t signed any recruits for next season, and a win here and tournament berth would be huge for the recruiting circuit.
That thought helped him focus back on the task at hand: how to stop Maarty Pinkalla.
It turns out Oggy didn’t need to stop Pinkalla; the senior stopped himself. 2 fouls in the first few minutes meant that he sat most of the first half. With Pinkalla out, the Vikings had no rim protector and the Bears went to town.
Within 5 minutes of the half starting, the Bears were up 30-19, and every time Sam Platt pulled his team closer, Andres Swanson and Donovin Mascoll would answer. At halftime the Bears were up 43-34 and were shooting an amazing 75% from the field. The only reason that the Vikings were in the game was because of Sam Platt’s 13 points.
At halftime, Oggy took a page from his brother’s book and only had 2 instructions:
- Brandon North was going to shadow Platt and keep him from getting any open looks
- The team should look to control the game and the ball
Pinkalla was back in the game, but the big man was invisible. UNC started creeping ahead, and probably sealed it with a crazy sequence that started with 9:36 left in the game: Andres Swanson had an ill-advised pass to North that was stolen by the Vikings, but Swanson hustled back and knocked the ball free on the layup attempt. Stiles picked up the ball, got it to North, who tried to feed it into Jahnke for a layup. Instead it was picked up by Pinkalla, who passed it upcourt. However, the Vikings’ next pass was deflected by Swanson and stolen by Stiles, who handed it off to Swanson. Andres Swanson drove into the lane and kicked it out to Brandon North who hit a 23-footer from the wing to put UNC up 57-36.
From that point on, it was domination and resulted in a 30 point victory for Northern Colorado. It was onto the Big Dance for the boys from Greeley!
Maarty Pinkalla did not manage to take a single shot. It was an amazing victory and gameplan by Coach Dragomirov, and one that he’ll probably never forget: his 1
st conference title and berth into the NCAA tournament.