Frontier Notebook: Home games on the line for Lights, Skylights at Tech

It all comes down to this weekend for the Montana State University-Northern men's and women's basketball teams. And everybody else in the Frontier Conference for that matter.

While the Carroll College women and the Providence men have the league's regular season titles locked up, the final weekend of the regular season holds plenty of importance, including for both Northern teams as they fight for first-round playoff home games.

The Northern men need to win twice at Montana Tech, as the Lights (5-10) play the Orediggers in Butte Saturday and Sunday, and hope for one Montana Western loss to move back into fourth place in the Frontier standings, and host a playoff game. The scenarios also include the Orediggers, who are alone in fourth right now, but could finish as high as second, or as low as fifth in the final standings.

Still, Northern head coach Shawn Huse is focusing more on his squad, than the Orediggers, or the standings. Northern split with Tech last month in Havre.

"I just think for us right now it's all about continued improvement. We are literally a team new enough to one another, that we are still figuring out how to execute so many important nuances and small things. And how those little adjustments make such big differences in conference games. Having five seniors last year and pretty much no preseason has not been a great recipe for us ... especially in the always tough Frontier Conference. Just a few plays here and there and I feel our whole season is different. I know every team has those feelings right now, but I am not sure anyone can legitimately say that more than us," Huse said. "We need to take this weekend and see how tight we can play, as we prepare ourselves for the postseason. Our confidence level and belief is as high as ever and we need to just keep working and fighting and see what happens. I continue to be impressed with our guys and their character, work ethic and ability to prepare that they bring each week."

The Skylights meanwhile, should be confident, too. Northern (4-9) is coming off an exciting win over Western last Sunday in its home finale. But, if the Skylights win at least one of their two games at Tech this weekend, they will secure a home playoff game next week. Either way, Northern will be playing Tech again in the playoffs, so this weekend's games will be big for the Skylights as they close out what has been a roller coaster of a regular season.

"Montana Tech is a very, very talented team and they have some very big wins to their credit, including over both Providence and Montana-Western. They've been hit pretty hard by injuries and untimely quarantine issues, but I expect them to be back at full-strength in Butte," MSU-N head man Chris Mouat said. "I believe this will be the first time they have had their whole team in a couple of months, so we know they will be ready to go. They always do a nice job defensively, and they present matchup problems for us. We will need to be sharp on both ends and we'll have to do a great job limiting them to one shot. Offensively, we will need to execute at a high level and we need to recognize how they are defending us. They mix their man and zones up, and they will throw full-court pressure at us as well. We are looking at every game as a chance to get better as we head into the playoffs."

Final leaders

Heading into the final weekend of the season, Providence' Emilee Maldonado is the league's leading women's scorer at 17.4 points per night, and she leads in assists at five per outing. Teammate Parker Esary is the leader in rebounding at nine per game, while Western's Paige Holmes leads the league in steals, and Rocky Mountain College's Mackenzie Dethman is tops in blocks.

Northern's Tiara Gilham is sixth in the Frontier in scoring at 14 ppg, while Sydney Hovde is second in the Frontier in rebounding at nine per outing and Gilham is third at seven per game.

On the men's side, UP's Zach Darko-Kelly is trying to pull off leading the league in a double-double as he's tops in scoring (20 ppg) and rebounding (10 rpg) heading into the final regular season weekend. Darko-Kelly also leads the Frontier in blocked shots. Max Clark of Western, the reigning Frontier Men's Player of the Week, leads the league in assists at six per game, while Carroll's Jovan Sljivancanin is first in steals.

MSU-N's Mascio McCadney is fourth in the conference in scoring at 18.5 ppg, while David Harris is sixth at 16.6 ppg. Jomel Boyd is also fifth in the Frontier in rebounding at seven per night.

No fans, new playoff look

The Frontier updated its winter sports fans policies earlier this week, and it was determined that, for the remainder of the basketball season, including the playoffs, there will continue to be no fans at Frontier Conference venues. That policy will also continue for the ongoing Frontier volleyball season.

For the playoffs this season, men's and women's games will be played on the same night instead of separate, up until the championship games. The playoffs will begin with men's and women's first-round games Thursday Feb. 25. Women's games tip at 5 p.m. and men's at 7 p.m. The semifinals for both the men's and women's playoffs will be played Saturday, Feb. 27 at the homes of the top two seeds. The women's championship game will then be played March 1 at 7 p.m. and the men's championship game will be contested March 2 at 7 p.m.