Wayne State
- Jan 6, 2020
- 7 min read
Wayne State Wildcats (5-11, 2-5) vs. Southwest Minnesota State Mustangs (4-9, 1-6)
Saturday, January 4, 2020 @ 5:30 PM
Wayne, NE Rice Auditorium
THE SCHOOL
Wayne State College is a public college in Wayne, Nebraska. Founded in 1910, the school enrolls 3,633 students and has an endowment of $23.6 million. Confusingly, there is a Wayne State University in Michigan that plays in the same athletic division.
The Wildcats compete in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) in NCAA Division II. Wayne State won the NSIC's South Division last year, but they come into this game on a five-game losing streak.
Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) is a public university in Marshall, Minnesota. The Mustangs also compete in the NSIC. I find the NSIC's scheduling strategy interesting. In most D1 conferences, teams play one game on Saturday and one game in the middle of the week. NSIC teams play every Friday and Saturday. This is because the conference is rather spread out, with schools ranging from Nebraska to northeast Minnesota and from east Iowa to northwest North Dakota. I imagine none of these athletic programs have a huge travel budget and they can't do hours-long bus trips on school days. So, schools spend half their weekends playing back-to-back home games and half their weekends going on long road trips playing two games in two days. On Friday night, the Mustangs played in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and they kept driving south on Saturday to reach Wayne, Nebraska. I think a lot of Division II and Division III conferences employ this scheduling policy, especially west of the Mississippi River.
THE TOWN
green=my apartment, blue=my office, yellow= past games, red=this game
On Saturday afternoon, I drove north on Highways 77 and 275 for about a hundred miles to reach Wayne. It took a little over two hours to reach my destination. As you can see from the map, this is the northernmost place I've been in Nebraska. Luckily, I had good weather (it was sunny and in the low 40s) so driving north on small roads was not a problem. As I drove further north, cornfields were replaced by miles and miles of cattle farms, which is something I had not seen much of on previous excursions.
Wayne has a population of just under 6,000, but the presence of the college and a nice little downtown area make it feel a bit bigger than that. The town is less than an hour away from the South Dakota border, and it's pretty much the only populated place in its county. I gave myself time to get dinner before the game, but I wasn't hungry when I got there so I waited until after. Driving back, I stopped at Udder Delights, which had a diner-style menu and specialized in ice cream. My chicken sandwich and apple cobbler were delicious, but Wayne must greatly depopulate during the college's winter break because Allison and I were the only two people there at 7:15 on a Saturday.
Rice Auditorium is on the north side of campus, so that's the part of Wayne State I saw. This part of campus is the athletic area and it's right near some of the very large houses of Wayne. Despite football season being over, their football stadium was still nicely kept up, and it's clear they've recently put a lot of resources into it. Rice Auditorium is connected to the school's rec center. It's a nice place - all the seats are on one side of the court and a big stage faces the other side. I presume this stage is where graduation takes place. Since Wayne State is in a higher athletic division than many of the schools I've seen, they're a bit more formal about their basketball. They had game programs, scanned tickets, a guy doing a radio broadcast, and an event security staff. However, I think the event security staff consisted of just one person who stood where the sideline meets halfcourt during game breaks. You can see him in the picture below.
THE GAME
I arrived at Rice Auditorium a little before 5. Tickets were $10 at the door and I bought a program for $2. I got the blandest popcorn I've ever eaten and found a place to sit. There were bleachers and chair-back seats, but I couldn't figure out how to get to the ones with backs, so I just sat in the bleachers. They were closer to the court anyway. Attendance was announced at 672, which felt right. Because of the school break, there were only a few students there, but a good amount of community members showed up to support the team.
In front of me and to my right sat a group of 10-12 Wayne State fans, all middle-aged. I originally thought one or two of them had kids in the game, but I think they are all just big Wildcat fans. They clearly came to a lot of games (if not every game) because they all knew knew other people there and they all had on their Wayne State gear. That's something I noticed - compared to a lot of places I've gone, a bunch of people in attendance wore school colors to the game. Right behind me sat the Wayne State women's team. Having just finished their game (they won 79-62), a couple of them had ice packs on their knees and they all had wet hair. They were fun to sit in front of because they knew a bunch of people there and made occasional snide comments about their male counterparts.
With this being considered a slightly higher level of competition than many of the games I've seen, one would expect a higher quality of refereeing. This was not the case. Somehow, they missed a shot clock violation. An SMSU player shot the ball as the clock wound down, but only hit the side of the backboard. An SMSU player got the rebound but couldn't get a shot off. The buzzer sounded, as it should have, but the referees just... let the play go on. The ball never hit the rim, possession never changed hands, and the clock operator allowed the buzzer to ring, but for some reason, the officials never stopped play and they gave the Mustangs an extra possession. Wayne State's coach screamed for an explanation, but none of the three officials dared approach him; I think they knew they'd messed up. Fortunately, SMSU missed their opportunity and couldn't score, so it didn't really matter, but this incident combined with several phantom foul calls against both teams made for questionable officiating. Basketball is a fast-paced sport - it's hard to see everything that goes on and officials get unfairly hated. But this was the worst officiating I've seen yet.
The first game finished in a timely matter so this one started right at 5:30. As soon as it tipped, you could tell why both these teams have sub-.500 records. They each struggled to get their offenses into swing and no one could get above 2 points for a few minutes. They eventually settled in though, and Wayne St. led 9-6 after the first five minutes. After this, Wayne State forced five straight SMSU turnovers while going on an 8-0 run to take a sizable lead. This proved brief, however, as the Mustangs answered with a defensive takeover of their own and held the Wildcats to zero points between the twelve-and-a-half minute mark and the seven minute mark. With five minutes left Wayne State led by five, but at 1:20, SMSU tied the game at 31, and they took their first lead with 41 seconds remaining, 33-32. This was the score at the half. SMSU's #13, Kenny Byers, single-handedly kept the Mustangs in it in the first half. He was their entire offense and he went into the half with 18 points. He ended up playing all forty minutes.
Today's halftime entertainment consisted of a shooting competition between two preteen brothers. The younger one won, but they seemed to be about the same size. As this went on, the women's basketball team signed autographs near the entrance.
The game came back as a back-and-forth affair. Both teams followed two-possession leads with minutes-long scoring droughts as they struggled to build momentum. Wayne State's #32, Jordan Janssen, had a solid post presence and was Wayne's best player today. He scored 25 points, grabbed 11 boards, and shot 12 free throws, all while playing smart defense. With seven minutes left, Wayne State's #3, Nick Ferrarini hit a probably ill-advised NBA-level three that gave Wayne a 44-43 lead (their first lead in five minutes) and provided the first spark of momentum in a while. The Wildcats turned this momentum into a 49-45 lead with five minutes remaining, but Wayne's scoring inconsistency once again got the best of them, and they allowed SMSU to tie the game at 50 with 3:30 left. Wayne State made a two point basket, but SMSU's #10, Andy Stafford, hit a three to give the Mustangs a 53-52 lead. In what felt like a replay, Wayne State again hit a two, only for their basket to be answered by an Andy Stafford three-point shot. Wayne then misfired and Stafford scored a layup to give the Mustangs a 58-54 lead with under one minute on the clock. After the teams traded free throw attempts (with the help of some controversial whistles), Wayne State had the ball and a three-point deficit (60-57) with thirteen seconds left. For some incomprehensible reason, the Wildcats drained the clock before driving inside and hitting a layup with three seconds left. They scored, but they killed their chance of winning by choosing not to attempt a three point shot. On the next possession, Wayne State fouled Kenny Byers who hit both free throws to get the lead back to three. Wayne State's last chance evaporated as they threw the ball to a wide open SMSU player, and the game ended in disappointment and confusion.
Final: Southwest Minnesota State 62, Wayne State 59
An interesting note that I didn't fit in to the main body: bucking decades of college basketball tradition, Wayne State wore their dark jerseys at home. I don't know why and I don't know if this is normal for them, but both men's and women's teams wore black while SMSU wore white. Thank you for indulging me.
Next up: Creighton University
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