Concordia
- Jan 31, 2020
- 8 min read
Concordia Bulldogs (16-6, 7-5) vs. Northwestern Red Raiders (15-7, 7-5)
Wednesday, January 29, 2020 @ 8:00 PM
Seward, NE
Walz Human Performance Complex
THE SCHOOL
Concordia University, Nebraska is a private Lutheran university in Seward, Nebraska. Founded in 1894, Concordia has an enrollment of around 2,500 students and an endowment of just over $50 million. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod operates nine universities. All of them are named Concordia. There are Concordias in New York, Michigan, Texas, Illinois, California, Oregon, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin (plus there was one in Selma, Alabama before its 2018 closure). Last weekend, the Concordias from Nebraska, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin got together for a basketball tournament. Concordia Nebraska won both the men's and women's fields in what must have been horribly confusing games to officiate.
The Bulldogs compete in the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) in Division II of the NAIA. I made sure to see both the men's and women's teams. Concordia's women's basketball team is the reigning NAIA DII national champion. This year, they're 20-2 and ranked #3. In an exhibition game early this season, they played Creighton (a good NCAA D-I team in a power conference) and took them to double overtime before losing by two. They're really good. The men's team is no slouch either. After a bit of a rough start, the men's team has won nine of their last ten games and they have a real shot to make the NAIA DII postseason tournament for the first time in fifteen years.
Northwestern College is a private liberal arts college affiliated with the Reformed Church in America in Orange City, Iowa. The Red Raiders also compete in the GPAC. They have no relationship with the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The Raiders' head coach, Kris Korver, is the uncle of Milwaukee Bucks small forward (and former Creighton star) Kyle Korver. Kris Korver is in his twentieth year at Northwestern.
THE TOWN
green=my apartment, blue=my office, yellow=previous games, red=this game
From Lincoln, I drove about 25 miles on Highway 34 to get to Seward. It is within the Lincoln metro area, so Seward is not far from my apartment and it only took about thirty-five minutes to get there. Despite this, the town feels like its much further from Lincoln once you're there. Highway 34 is a small, not-well-lit, lightly traveled road. Seward has a population of just under 7,000 people and has the feel of a smaller, more remote town than it actually is. It's not far at all from Lincoln, but you wouldn't guess it by being there.
Seward has an attraction I wanted to see. This small Nebraska town is home to "the world's largest time capsule," according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Apparently, in 1975, a furniture store owner wanted to preserve the culture he knew for his grandchildren, so he built this time capsule. Per a marker on the capsule, the time capsule contains "a new 1975 Chevrolet Vega," "a new Kawasaki motorcycle," and "thousands of letters and other memorabilia...from...across the country." This article from roadsideamerica.com adds that the capsule has "a pair of bikini panties, a man's aquamarine leisure suit," and "piles and piles of telephone books." It is due to be opened in 2025, so just five years from now. Unfortunately, it was too dark to get a picture by the time I drove by the time capsule. Also, the thing is just in the middle of a neighborhood, so I didn't get the opportunity to stop and really look at it. The RoadsideAmerica article linked above has a photo of it and - believe me - it doesn't look like what you think it's going to look like.
Concordia University has a pretty campus. Driving into campus, this first thing you see is the school's main building, a sizable, three-story, academic-looking establishment with columns and spires. Campus is surprisingly small and I think I drove the full-length of it in the short time I was there. While the architecture and layout of the university is in obvious contrast with the rest of Seward, it doesn't necessarily feel separate from the rest of the town. Neighborhoods surround campus and some of the main roads go right through the school. It's a nice place.
The Walz Human Performance Complex (weird name) is one of the finest small-school arenas around. It was completed in 2009 but its newness has not worn out. The building itself is huge, encompassing both the weight room and student rec center. You emerge into the arena portion of the complex from a brick walkway that leads to a large hallway. Once you're in, the arena is to the right. The bleachers form a horseshoe shape with the blank wall containing a big scoreboard, a video board, and their recent national championship banner. The room's acoustics are fantastic - big moments in the game felt even bigger as sound swelled throughout the arena. It was a cool place to see a game.
THE GAME
There was nowhere to park. The Walz Center has a large parking lot - every spot was full. I had to park way down some residential street off-campus. After a few minutes of walking, I finally got to the arena. Tickets were $8 and I headed into the gym. I normally like to sit on the sideline near halfcourt, but the baseline had more open seats so I went that way this time. Pretty obviously, there's no such thing as a bad seat here, so it doesn't really matter.
Not only does Concordia have a nicer-than-average arena, their crowd atmosphere was great. Students took up one whole side of the arena and their pep band was loud, talented, and lively. The Bulldog crowd was knowledgeable and engaged, and they closely followed the action in both the women's and men's games. Probably about 50 percent of fans were wearing Concordia gear, which I thought was pretty good for such a small school. Official attendance was listed at 685; while I think that may be slightly inflated, many people were standing in the hallway chatting or socializing toward the back of the seating area. The two men sitting behind me seemed to be regulars while their young daughters went off and played in another area of the arena. A Concordia game feels like a local social event as much as it does a basketball game.
Because I went a bit out of my way to see the World's Largest Time Capsule and I had difficulty finding parking, I only caught the second half of the women's game played first. I won't do a full recap of this because I don't want this write-up to get too long, but Concordia led 39-37 when I first got there and they won 91-76. While Northwestern played pretty well, the Bulldogs were unstoppable. They scored 52 second half points on 55% shooting, 62% from 3, and 100% at the free throw line against the seventeenth-ranked team in Northwestern. There's a reason the Bulldogs are so highly ranked.
The men's game started right at 8 and it started out fast. Two minutes in, It was already Concordia 9, Northwestern 7. Five minutes in, the Red Raiders took the lead, 14-12, but Concordia immediately hit a three to retake the lead. With 11:10 remaining in the first half, Northwestern had retaken their advantage and extended it to five (23-18), but just over one minute later, Concordia was back on top. The 7:40 mark marked a turning point in the game. The game was tied 30-30, but the Red Raiders suddenly went cold. Over the last 7:40 of the half, the Bulldogs wet on a 13-3 run to end the half up double-digits, 43-33. Concordia's #21, Tanner Shuck, led the Bulldogs in first half scoring with 10 points while #30, Chuol Biel, grabbed 9 first half rebounds and was seemingly everywhere on the low block.
The Concordia dance team started off halftime. After they were done, they honored the 2004-05 Concordia men's basketball team. This squad won thirty-two games and went to the NAIA DII national championship game. They were also the last men's Bulldog team to win their conference.
Concordia started the second half the same way as they ended the first. For the first 5:30 of the half, the Bulldogs went on a 17-7 run to take a 20-point lead, 60-40. Tanner Shuck added 8 more points during this stretch; he and his teammates seemed unstoppable. However, Northwestern worked hard to whittle away at Concordia's lead, and at the 6:00 mark, the Red Raiders cut it down to 9 points. You could feel them getting back into it. Over the next four minutes, the Bulldog lead ping-ponged between 8 and 12, but facing an 11-point deficit with 1:43 left, the Red Raiders quickly hit a three, got a stop, and hit a two-point jumper to get within 6 points for the first time since halftime. Northwestern started intentionally fouling at this point and Concordia made 2 free throws. But the Bulldogs fouled a three-point shooter on the other end, and the Northwestern player hit all three of his free throws to get the deficit down to 5 (82-77) with just under 1 minute remaining. Concordia hit 1 of 2 free throws after a quick intentional foul. Northwestern dribbled the ball down the court and put up an awful-looking three-point shot with 43 seconds left. It banked in off the backboard and Northwestern was only down by 3, 83-80. After another intentional foul, Concordia made the first free throw but missed the second and a Bulldog fouled a Red Raider on the rebound attempt, which sent Northwestern to the free throw line for two shots. They made both; in just over one minute, Northwestern cut an 11-point deficit down to just 2. This time, Northwestern didn't want to foul anybody; they did anyway and, unfortunately, it was on a three-point shooter with only 14 seconds left. Concordia's #5, Carter Kent, had been having a really good day before stepping to the line. He missed the first two free throws before making the third, and couldn't close out the game. Down 3 with 14 seconds left, the Red Raiders somehow had a chance to tie after being behind by as much as 20 earlier in the game. Their guy got the ball at the top of the arc, squared up for a shot, and missed the rim by about six inches. The ball sailed out of bounds with 5 seconds left and Concordia got it back. All the Bulldogs have to do is inbound the ball and the game is pretty much over. They can't do it. A Concordia player cut toward the center of the court, the inbounder didn't expect this, the ball went straight out of bounds, and Northwestern got another chance. The Red Raiders ran a similar play as their last one: their guy took a couple dribbles before squaring up for a shot right at the top of the arc, and he airballed it again. This time there was only half a second left. The Red Raiders got a quick foul, Concordia made a meaningless free throw, and the game ended in kind of an anticlimactic way for such a tight game.
Final: Concordia 86, Northwestern 82
This was a wild game. The teams combined for 32 made three-point-shots, with 18 of them coming just in the second half, nearly one per minute. Northwestern scored 10 points in 1 minute, 15 seconds with the game winding down. Concordia shot nearly 50% from behind the three-point line, but only went 10/20 on free throws. Chuol Biel only scored five points in the game but he became one of my favorite players of the project so far. He ended his day with 11 rebounds and 7 blocks with 0 fouls. Overall, this might have been the best game I've seen so far.
Next up: The University of Nebraska-Omaha
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