SO CLOSE: Lights rallied to nearly reach the NAIA's Big Dance

Coming up short in a season hits hard for any team, but it hurts even more when there is a lot of hard work and big wins that boost a team forward in the later half of a season. On top of that, doing well like that is even tougher when the conference is loaded with talent and strength.

This was the case for the Montana State University-Northern men's basketball team this past season. The Lights finished off the year at No. 33 in the NAIA Coaches Poll, just missing the 2020 NAIA National Tournament, even if it was canceled later on due to the COVID-19 concern. Northern ended the season with a 20-12 overall and a 9-9 Frontier Conference record, as well.

The Lights have been making a good rise in recent years and MSU-Northern head coach Shawn Huse reflected on just how far his team came in the 2019-2020 season.

"We had a remarkable season," Huse said. "To narrowly miss the national tournament in it of itself is pretty amazing. We were the No. 1 strength of schedule team and league in the country. A lot of that has to do with playing ranked teams in January and February every weekend over and over again. We did an excellent job in the back stretch. We fought, kicked scratched and plowed our way to put themselves in a good position."

Early on in the season, the Lights started off quite well out-of-conference, going 6-0 against teams like Dickinson State University and the Northwest University of Washington, as well as giving the University of Montana a tough exhibition game, even if Northern lost 64-50. Add wins against Yellowstone Christian College and Salish Kootenai College, the Lights kicked off the season strong.

But then Northern hit a tough stretch in conference. After winning over the University of Montana Western, the Lights lost a close one to Rocky Mountain College right after. Then, MSU-N took a pair of tight losses to Arizona Christian University and Mount Vernon Nazarene in the Cactus Classic. Things took a bit of a dip for the Lights and Huse knew that that was where his team really struggled.

"The only place we struggled was early on," Huse said. "When you lose your returning sixth man of the year in our second conference game and it takes him a while to get back, when your typically great shooters are not shooting the ball as well, you're not going to get off to a great start like we did this year. That said, we hung together and they continued to work it out. We had some key pieces in this last year that came in and changed up things in an effort to advance this team farther than we've been in the last couple years."

But Northern did grab some wins over Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the University of Alberta-Augustana and the Concordia University of Edmonton afterward. But the winning streak did not last long, as the Frontier opponents gave the Lights some more trouble.

Northern suffered a four-game losing streak to Carroll College, the University of Providence, Lewis-Clark State and Montana Tech next. Even with a win over the Fighting Saints to follow, the Argos and Warriors handed more losses to the Lights. But winning picked up again for Northern, going on a four-game victory streak over Western, RMC and Tech. MSU-Northern went back-and-forth from there, but big wins over Providence and Tech set up a semifinal matchup with Lewis-Clark in the Frontier Conference Tournament, where the Lights gave the Warriors a good game, but fell just short 73-68. Even so, Northern had a decent shot at the national tournament, but at the end of the day, the Lights did not receive a selection to the big dance.

Northern had a strong roster this year, as well. With a high-ranked defense and a team that caused a lot of turnovers, the Lights turned some heads in return, especially the senior class.

Cedric Crutchfield, Devin Bray, Kavon Bey, Adam Huse and Gio Jackson put in a lot of work this season. Huse reached over 1,000 points in his career and an Honorable Mention All-American award, with an aggressive offensive attack at his disposal.

The Lights had more weapons this season, too. Junior Mascio McCadney averaged nearly 15 points per game on his way to All-Conference honors, junior David Harris came on strong in the second half of the season, averaging close to 12 points per game. Jesse Keltner, another newcomer, had a big impact on the Lights as well.

Overall, the Lights had quite a great roster of players and Huse was very proud of them all.

"I can't say enough about the group of guys we had," Huse said. "We mixed up the lineup a bit with rotations and everyone was in 100-percent. We handled Providence on their court and it was one heck of an effort our guys put forth. It was another remarkable season with some great guys representing us. They were a fun group to watch and these guys were a pleasure to coach."

And now the spring recruiting season is upon Northern, where the Lights have already snagged some promising talent. So far, Northern has signed Allen Sims of Lakeland Junior College in Kirkland, Ohio, Region XIII Tournament MVP C.J. Nelson of Scobey, and Three Forks star Micaiah Hauser, bringing a good boost to its roster.

But with COVID-19 meddling with many things, including recruiting, Huse has had to resort to a virtual method this spring.

"I feel like it's been more work than in a typical year," Huse said. "Either way, we do a lot of work in the spring between having guys visiting our campus, introducing them to the team, being on the roads doing visits, and we're not doing those things. However, neither is anybody else in the country. What you have is a lot of kids looking for schools from home and every four-year program in the country at every level is making phone calls to these kids, so right now you're staying on your phone and email doing virtual visits 24/7. That's what it's going to take simply with the situation with coronavirus."

Going 20-12 overall, 9-9 in the Frontier, and reaching the Frontier semifinals, and having a tough defense, as well as a well-rounded roster, brings about a lot of positives for the Lights, even if they came up just short of the NAIA National Tournament. And the Lights will be excited to take another big step when they get back on the court next winter.