MEN'S SEMIFINAL | 7:30 p.m. Friday – SOU at Eastern Oregon | Live Stats | Stream
WOMEN'S SEMIFINAL | 5:30 p.m. Saturday – SOU at LC State | Live Stats | Stream

ASHLAND – After surviving the quarterfinal round at home, the Southern Oregon University men's and women's basketball teams will both hit the road for the semifinals of the Cascade Conference Championships presented by U.S. Bank.

The No. 3-seeded Raider men (20-9 overall) visit No. 2 seed Eastern Oregon (20-9) at 7:30 p.m. Friday inside Quinn Coliseum. The Raider women (23-6), also a No. 3 seed, will be at No. 10-ranked and No. 2-seeded Lewis-Clark State (27-2), the regular season co-champion, in Lewiston, Idaho, at 5:30 p.m. Saturday inside the P1FCU Activity Center. Both SOU squads strengthened their at-large candidacies for the 64-team NAIA National Tournament fields – which will be revealed on March 2 – by getting out of the quarterfinals, but will need to win CCC titles to qualify automatically.

MEN'S NOTES
TUESDAY – QUARTERFINALS
(1) College of Idaho 87, (8) Bushnell 70
(2) Eastern Oregon 82, (7) Oregon Tech 76 (OT)
(3) Southern Oregon 77, (6) Lewis-Clark State 75
(5) Corban 73, (4) Warner Pacific 63
FRIDAY – SEMIFINALS
7:30 p.m. – Southern Oregon at Eastern Oregon
SATURDAY – SEMIFINALS
6:30 p.m. – Bushnell at College of Idaho
FEB. 27 – CHAMPIONSHIP
7:30 p.m. – Lowest Remaining Seed at Highest

QUARTERFINALS IN REVIEW: After blowing out Lewis-Clark State by 34 points 11 days earlier, Southern Oregon needed to force two turnovers in the final 31 seconds to hang on for a 77-75 win and eliminate the Warriors on Tuesday at Lithia Motors Pavilion. Tez Allen and Dominic McGarvey both scored 16 points and combined for 11 rebounds as the Raiders survived despite LCSC's 52-percent clip from the field, compared to a 33-percent mark in the previous matchup. Trailing 60-58 with eight minutes to go, they went ahead for good with a 10-2 run sparked by Tre Carlisle. Leading by one and then three points in the final minute, Khalil Chatman took a charge and Allen came up with a steal on back-to-back possessions to seal the outcome.

Eastern Oregon fought off Oregon Tech in overtime, 82-76, as the Mountaineers' Preston Chandler banked in a 3-pointer to start a 9-0 run in the extra session and Phillip Malatare totaled 26 points. Top-ranked College of Idaho rolled over Bushnell, 87-70, for its 28th consecutive win, and No. 5 seed Corban upset Warner Pacific on the road, 73-63, behind Taylor Anderson's 16 points and 10 rebounds.

PLAYOFF PICTURE: College of Idaho locked up the CCC's first NAIA automatic bid by running the table in regular-season play, and the second bid will go to the tournament champion – unless C of I wins it, in which case it will go to No. 2 seed Eastern Oregon. The championship game, hosted by the highest remaining seed, is scheduled for Monday night.

C of I's semifinal against Corban has been postponed until Saturday night due to travel issues for the Warriors brought on by inclement weather. That gives the winner of the SOU-EOU matchup a distinct advantage: Whoever moves on will have two days off, and the C of I-Corban winner will have just one rest day. On the other hand, C of I has won four consecutive tournament championships on its home floor and has yet to lose in Caldwell this season.

SOU vs. EOU: Friday's game represents a rubber match between the rivals after both won on their home floors during the regular season. EOU prevailed 96-90 in overtime on Dec. 3 in La Grande as All-CCC senior point guard Phillip Malatare scored the final 10 points of the game, converting on five straight possessions in OT, and finished with 22. The Raiders paid the Mountaineers back in an 88-63 decision on Jan. 20 in Ashland, where Josh Meyer had 15 points and 13 rebounds and Khalil Chatman and Cole McAninch combined for 28 points off the bench. Malatare was also a force that night, going for 25 on 11-of-17 shooting, but his teammates combined to hit at just 27 percent from the field and 20 percent from 3.

The game will feature a matchup of two of the CCC's top scorers in Malatare (19.3 points) and SOU's Atmar Mundu (16.6 points). The teams collectively are two of the best offensively in the NAIA, with EOU ranking 17th of 234 teams in offensive rating (112.6 points/100 possession) and SOU ranking 29th (111.2).  They're meeting for the 199th time dating back to 1930, and the Raiders have a 109-89 edge in the series. They've lost two in a row in La Grande after winning the previous three contests at Quinn, but took the last CCC Tournament matchup there in the 2013 semifinals. SOU is 3-2 all-time against EOU in the tourney, the most recent such contest being a 97-73 Raider quarterfinal victory in 2017.

TEZ TALK: Tez Allen's big performance on Tuesday – when he hit his first five shots with three 3-pointers, finished with 16 points and collected the game-clinching steal – was nothing new in the postseason. In last year's quarterfinals at Corban he scored 18 with buckets on four possessions in a row down the stretch to close out a 67-65 win, and in the semifinals at Lewis-Clark State he walked off with a buzzer-beating 3 for a 67-66 win, finishing with 15 points and nine rebounds. The two-time All-CCC senior has made 10 career postseason starts and the Raiders are 7-3 in those games. On SOU's all-time lists Allen is No. 1 in steals (166), No. 3 in assists (486), No. 10 in rebounds (735) and No. 20 in points (1,185) – making him the only player in program history to rank among the top-20 in each category.

SOU TOURNAMENT HISTORY: The Raiders are in the CCC Tournament for the 12th consecutive postseason and have advanced to the semifinals for the seventh time in eight seasons. Last year they reached the championship game for the fourth time since 2013; only one team, College of Idaho, has made more appearances in the title game during that span. The Raiders have captured two CCC Tournament titles, in 1999 and 2005. Last year they fell at College of Idaho in the final – the site of their last three championship losses – after winning at Corban in the quarterfinals and at LCSC in the semis.

WOMEN'S NOTES
WEDNESDAY – QUARTERFINALS
(1) Eastern Oregon 87, (8) Evergreen 49
(2) Lewis-Clark State 91, (7) Corban 48
(3) Southern Oregon 77, (6) College of Idaho 64
(4) Oregon Tech 67, (5) Bushnell 62
SATURDAY – SEMIFINALS
5:30 p.m. – Oregon Tech at Eastern Oregon
5:30 p.m. – Southern Oregon at Lewis-Clark State
TUESDAY – CHAMPIONSHIP
5:30 p.m. – Lowest Remaining Seed at Highest Remaining Seed

QUARTERFINALS IN REVIEW: A frantic finish pushed Southern Oregon past No. 6 seed College of Idaho, 77-64, in the completion of a season sweep of the Yotes that wasn't nearly as comfortable as the final score indicated Wednesday at Lithia Motors Pavilion. The Raiders trailed 57-49 after three quarters before starting the fourth with an 17-0 run, during which they limited the Yotes to one field-goal attempt by turning them over on seven of eight possessions. They forced 29 turnovers on the night, one off a season-high, and outscored the Yotes 28-7 during the final period to offset the visitors' hot shooting up to that point. Kami Walk led five Raiders in double figures with 15 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists, Clara Robbins logged 13 points and four blocked shots, and Danasia Allison and Brianna Phiakhamngon came up with five steals apiece. Phiakhamngon also scored eight in the fourth.

The tournament went chalk everywhere else, too, with No. 1 seed Eastern Oregon winning by 38 and No. 2 seed Lewis-Clark State winning by 33. Oregon Tech, the No. 4 seed, closed its quarterfinal against Bushnell with a 23-10 run to erase an eight-point deficit and win 67-62.

PLAYOFF PICTURE: After EOU and LCSC completed the regular season as co-champions, a coin flip decided that EOU would get the tournament's No. 1 seed and LCSC would get the No. 2 seed and the CCC's first automatic bid for the NAIA National Tournament. The second automatic bid will be awarded to the tournament champion – unless LCSC wins it, in which case it will go to EOU. Both semifinal games are scheduled for Saturday night, and the championship is set for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

If the Raiders don't earn the auto bid, their at-large prospects appear solid with 23 victories. But they dipped slightly in Wednesday's latest NAIA coaches' poll: After being the first team outside of the Top 25 in the previous edition, they're now three spots out. LCSC remained at No. 10 and EOU climbed two spots to No. 12.

SOU vs. LCSC: The Raiders were up to the challenge against the Warriors in the regular season despite dropping both games. In a 54-48 loss at LCSC on Jan. 14, they stormed out to an 18-4 lead and were up six points with seven minutes left. And in a 77-67 loss on Feb. 10 in Ashland, they went ahead 19-9 in the first quarter and were down just three before going scoreless for the opening four minutes of the fourth. Warriors guard Callie Stevens, the reigning CCC Player of the Year, figured heavily into both matchups with averages of 19.5 points and 4.5 assists. LCSC's length proved to be problematic, holding SOU to 36-percent shooting combined. Brianna Phiakhamngon averaged 17.5 points.

Phiakhamngon also starred with a game-high 21 points in SOU's 56-34 title-clinching win last year in Lewiston, where the Raiders kept the Warriors to their lowest point total in at least 20 years and seven or fewer in three different quarters. SOU is 4-7 overall in the head-to-head series.

WALK-ING DOUBLE-DOUBLE: Kami Walk's double-double on Tuesday against C of I marked her fourth in a row, seven in nine games and 21st over the last two seasons. Only one other Raider, Autumn Durand in 2016-17, has logged four straight since 2010, when Jacki Speer hit the marks in five consecutive games. During the active stretch, Walk is averaging 19.8 points on 49-percent shooting and 12.3 rebounds. Walk has posted 15.1 points per game in seven career CCC Tournament outings dating back to 2020, and in last year's title game at LCSC she went for 20 points on 8-of-12 shooting with four 3-pointers and nine boards.

SOU TOURNAMENT HISTORY: The Raiders are in the tournament for the 16th consecutive season and attempting to advance to the championship game for the sixth time in seven seasons. Last year's title was their seventh. They've won their last two CCC semifinal road games – both at Eastern Oregon, in 2014 and 2020. An appearance in the NAIA National Tournament would mark their 14th all-time and seventh in eight seasons.