George Ferguson Column: Just one night in the Armory, but it was crazy

If there was a more exciting, more intense or more controversial night of basketball in the Frontier Conference than Saturday night’s games at the Armory Gymnasium, I’d sure like to hear about it.

On the opening weekend of Frontier play, nowhere was the action more interesting, more entertaining and more gut-wrenching than in Havre when both the Montana State University-Northern Skylights and Lights took on the Lewis-Clark State Warriors.

In fact, it was so crazy Saturday night in the Armory, I almost don’t know where to begin.

But since I have to begin somewhere, I’ll start from the beginning. And in the first game of the night, the Skylights, then ranked No. 15 in the NAIA, made a statement the rest of the Frontier will certainly have to take notice of.

In what has been a great rivalry, but also one that the Skylights have repeatedly been on the wrong end of, Northern and LC State waged another great battle Saturday night.

It would have been easy for the Skylights to have an emotional letdown after Friday night’s 41-point win over Montana Tech, but instead, the Skylights seemed more focused and more determined than ever. And that led to Northern holding commanding leads, both in the first half, and halfway through the second half.

However, the Warriors aren’t just good, they’re really good, and longtime Northern fans have seen some of the Frontier’s best teams come back from large deficits and make life miserable for the Skylights in the past.

And that’s exactly what the Warriors tried to do Saturday night. They tied the game late, and kept within striking distance down the stretch. Yet, these Skylights are a different group. Like LC, they too aren’t just good, they’re really good, and they proved that by holding off the talented Warriors in the final minute to win what was billed as the NAIA Game of the Week.

Yes, A’Jha Edwards was again phenomenal. One night after scoring 27 points and grabbing 16 rebounds, she overcame a fierce LC defense to score 19 points and pull down another 19 boards, leaving little doubt that she should be the NAIA National Player of the Week for the second week in a row.

But it took much more than Edwards’ dominance for Northern to win Saturday night.

It also took 20 points from super sophomore Natalee Faupel and it took Jacy Thompson playing more like a senior than a true freshman. It took Megan Feldman’s gritty, tough defense against a tall and athletic LC lineup, and it took the experience and leadership and playmaking ability of senior Taylor Cummings, who played all 40 minutes to pull off the win. It took Northern’s supporting bench stepping up, and most of all, it took a brilliant game plan from a brilliant coach in Chris Mouat.

And Northern got all of that Saturday night. Why? Because Northern is that team. The Skylights have all the pieces in place to have one of the best seasons in school history. Yes, as Mouat lamented afterwards, there’s a long way to go, and a lot of great teams left on the Skylights’ schedule. But Saturday night’s win over the Warriors was no fluke and it was no accident. The Skylights really are that good, and they have all the ingredients to be a championship team this season.

What happena next remains to be seen, but that much was proven Saturday night.

And while the Northern women thrilled a large Armory Gymnasium crowd with a great win, what happened a couple of hours later left that same crowd shaking and scratching their heads as they headed out into the cold, snowy Havre night.

In the Lights’ 80-76 loss at the hands of LC State, the game came down to two different plays in the final five seconds, and, as a result, two controversial calls by the officials.

I’ll say this right off the bat, Northern head coach Shawn Huse did the right thing by not criticizing either of the crazy calls that affected the final outcome Saturday night. Huse is a veteran coach with a wealth of experience, and as devastated as he was after the game, a game Northern had multiple chances to at least send to overtime, he knew not to go down that road. A good, veteran coach, no matter how bad he feels for his team, knows not to choose that path, and that nothing good will come from it, and Huse is a good, veteran coach and he didn’t go there Saturday night.

Fortunately for me, I don’t coach the Lights, I don’t coach in the Frontier Conference and I don’t even coach basketball, so I don’t have to choose that path. I can offer my own opinions and observations, and I’ll say this, for those that witnessed what happened Saturday night, I think the officials got one of the two final plays wrong. Yes, of course, to some, that will be construed as sour grapes, and I’m fine with being saddled with that label. But I saw what I saw.

Trevail Lee’s miraculous, game-tying 3-pointer just before time expired, should have counted in my opinion. And what’s interesting about that is, at the time, in real time, I didn’t think so. But then I saw the game film. Then I saw the play from a different angle, and also in slow motion. And there is no doubt in my mind that Lee was fouled in the act of shooting. The call was, that Lee was fouled before he let the ball go from some 40 feet away, and that the shot then didn’t count. Instead, he was awarded two free throws with Northern trailing by three points with 1.5 seconds left.

Again, I watched the film, over and over, and I just can’t understand how the foul on Lee could not be considered in the act of shooting. It was all one motion and the whistle blows as Lee is leaping into the air to let the shot go. Now, let me add, I’m not basketball referee, and I commend officials for all they do. It’s a brutal job, from Class C games all the way up to the NBA, officiating basketball is a thankless job, and I have the utmost respect for what officials do in basketball games around this country every night. But officials are also human beings, and they are capable of making mistakes, they are capable of making the wrong judgement calls, and in the case of the Lights on Saturday night, I think they got one wrong. And sadly, it cost Northern dearly.

Interestingly, the second call, on Lee’s missed free-throw, the one he needed to miss on purpose in order for Damian Robinson to put the ball back in and send the game to overtime, which is exactly what happened, it sure looked on film like Lee’s attempt didn’t draw iron, and therefore, Robinson’s putback didn’t count. That was the call, and while the call sent Northern fan’s into a rage for the second time in a matter of seconds, at least, from the angle I saw on film, the ball doesn’t appear to hit the rim. But that’s the look I got at it, and it’s very difficult to really see what happened. And now that the game has been over for three days, I guess we’ll never really know.

But the bottom line is, the game, which was a great battle between two really good teams, came down to two crazy plays and two judgement calls by the officials, and that’s always a recipe for controversy. If those things had transpired at the end of the first half, they aren’t nearly as critical, but when they happen at the end of a highly-contested and pressure-packed conference game, judgement calls like that become very heated and very disappointing, especially for the team and fans and that are on the wrong end of those calls.

And that’s the way it went for the Lights Saturday night, and there’s nothing they can do about it now. All they can do is continue to work hard, keep their heads up and come back and fight as hard as they can for two Frontier road wins this coming weekend.

That’s all they can do.

But make no mistake, for both the Lights, and the Skylights, if Saturday night was any indication of how this season is going to play it out, they, and we, are in for one wild ride, because Saturday night was sure one wild night in the Armory.