2/4/2010 8:44:14 AM
Just on the outside and looking in on the Cascade Conference playoff hunt, the Southern Oregon men’s basketball team will wrap up the home portion of the 2009-10 schedule this weekend at McNeal Pavilion.
The Raiders (11-11, 3-10) host Northwest University (13-10, 7-5) Friday night and 25th-ranked Evergreen State (16-6, 9-3) Saturday night.
The 2010 Cascade Conference Men’s Basketball Postseason Tournament will feature the top eight teams in the conference standings. Currently, the Raiders are just a game back of jumping into either the No. 7 or No. 8 spots.
Concordia sits in the No. 7 spot with a 4-8 conference mark and College of Idaho sits in the final playoff spot with a 4-9 record. SOU has split with College of Idaho and fell to Concordia at home in the first week of conference play. The Raiders close out the season at Concordia on Feb. 20.
Saturday night’s game will be the final regular season home game for six SOU seniors.
Humphrey Jackson, Jarrad Childs, Chris Mackovjak, Justonn Smith, David Grant and Ryan Staker will all say good-bye to the McNeal Pavilion crowd Saturday night.
The six seniors represent 60 of SOU’s 74 points per game.
Northwest enters this week after winning three of the last four, including an 82-80 overtime upset of Evergreen State last weekend.
Before last week’s setback to Northwest, Evergreen had won four games in a row and features one of the NAIA’s top players in senior guard Nate Menefee. Menefee leads the conference in scoring and ranks third in the NAIA at 26.7 points per game.