SKC Bison to play Eastern Washington University

By B.L. Azure

PABLO — The Salish Kootenai College men's basketball program will hit an important milestone in November when the Bison will play their first game ever against a Division I school. The Bison will face off against the Eastern Washington University Eagles of the Big Sky Conference in Cheney, Washington Friday, November 19.

Juan Perez, SKC athletic director and coach of the Lady Bison said the game came about from EWU's end.

"They called us about a month ago about filling an open date in their schedule. We were totally surprised by the call," Perez said, adding that the game came on the weekend of scheduled play in the MTCAA basketball league. However, SKC was able to work around the conflict and will play in Cheney. "It was a no-brainer. We want to play Eastern Washington."

Perez said that when he told Bison coach Zachary Conko-Camel about the game against the Division I program, the latter thought he was joked by the former.

"He didn't believe me. He said, 'Yea, yea, right.' But I eventually convinced him. We are really excited about this opportunity. It's an amazing thing," Perez said. "Playing a Division I school is going to help our program. One of Zack's goals is to play the (University of Montana) Grizzlies. He's hoping they see that we are playing Eastern and that we are just down the road from Missoula."

The big feather for now is the EWU game. It shows how far the SKC basketball program has come in its legitimate quest to play college basketball.

"This is a first for us. Someone had to tell Eastern Washington about our program. They are the ones that initiated the conversation," Perez said. "People are taking notice of us. This will be a great advertisement for the college. We have leap frogged over the NAIA to Division I and that's pretty amazing. We're feeling pretty proud about what we're doing here and we must be doing it well enough that a big school wants to play us."

Perez said that there are preliminary plans to charter a bus from Pablo to Cheney that would transport SKC fans to the game.

Another feather in the SKC war bonnet is that they have been invited to play in a tournament sponsored by the defending national junior college champions, Arizona Western in Yuma.

"I'm not sure how they heard about us," Perez said, adding that scheduling conflicts and cost precludes SKC from participating this in the junior college tournament this year.

Perez said the outlook for the men's and women's SKC basketball teams this season is good.

"We've hit a few bumps in the road over the last few years with the basketball program," Perez said. "But this past season our work to eliminate some bumps has turned out okay. We've turned some things around and our players worked hard, both on the floor and in the classroom. The hard work has been recognized by us and apparently by others as well."

That hard work has paid off when it comes to recruitment of players. "We're doing something right when you have people who want to come here and play for us," Perez said, adding that he routinely gets queries from student athletes interested in playing basketball for SKC.

Practice for the SKC men's team is slated to begin September 17 and the women's team begins less formal open gym conditioning practices September 20. The SKC fall quarter begins on September 27.

"We are looking forward to a good season," Perez said of the SKC Lady Bison. His biggest chore is to find someone to replace post player Carla McLean. The down low steady Betty helped lead the Lady Bison to back-to-back American Indian Higher Education Consortium national basketball championships. "We're excited and we will know more about our team once all the kids are back on campus September 27."