NTU men’s team entering toughest stretch of the season, Skyhawks to play 9 games in 10 days

CROWNPOINT

It’s going to be brutal.

The Navajo Technical University men’s basketball team is entering its toughest stretch yet. The Skyhawks must cover nine games in 10 days.

Of those games, seven are against conference opponents as NTU sits fourth in the seven-team Southwestern States Intercollegiate Conference (SWS) with a 4-3 record. They trail frontrunners Lincoln College, Justice College and West Coast Baptist.

“We probably need to win five out of the seven to make the conference tournament,” NTU coach Robb Floco said. “The nine (conference) wins should get us in, and that would be icing on the cake for our program, which will be unbelievable with it being our first year in the conference.”

The Skyhawks start their challenging schedule tonight with West Coast Baptist College in Lancaster, California. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. (PST).

“We haven’t played West Coast Baptist yet, so we’ll play them for two games,” Floco said. “They’re sitting third in the conference so obviously if we beat them twice that’ll drop them, and it puts us in their spot.”

The two teams will play again on Saturday at 5 p.m. before the Skyhawks take on Bethesda University on Sunday at 1 p.m. and Southern California Leadership University (SCLU) at 7 p.m. in Seal Beach, California.

NTU will wrap up its southern California swing playing Stanton University on Monday at 7 p.m. in Garden Grove.

The Floco-coached team ends its 10-day trek in Phoenix playing conference foe Justice College on Thursday at 7 p.m. followed by a pair of non-conference games with SAGU-American Indian College on Feb. 23 and 24.

“We have a very winnable game at Bethesda, a very winnable game at Stanton College,” Floco said. “We only lost to Stanton College by two and we were able to beat SCLU by 60 so we definitely feel that if we take care of West Coast Baptist, we’re going to pick up some momentum.”

And though it’s a tall task, NTU freshman point guard Anthony Alvez feels that his team is ready to take on the massive challenge.

“I think we’re ready for it,” Alvez said. “I mean, we’ve been pushing ourselves in practice, exhausting ourselves and it’s got us conditioned to play that many games. Our goal is to win as many (conference) games as possible and we’re not going to take our foot off the pedal.

“We can’t relax because the teams we’re playing are not playing nine games in a row like we are and we can’t let them take advantage,” he added. “We just have to trust our bench and each other to get through this tough stretch.”

Alvez is one of seven freshmen on the team making the 10-day trip as NTU moved up a few players from its developmental squad to its varsity team due to disciplinary issues within the program. The Skyhawks have lost several role players since the start of the new year.

With that, Alvez earned a starting spot in mid-January, and since then he’s been running with it.

“My coaches gave me a shot and I’m very thankful for that,” the Santa Fe native said. “They have put a lot of trust in me for taking over the point guard position. I’m just trying to get my teammates involved because I have great shooters on the team.

“I just gotta pass them the ball and they’re going to knock down a shot,” he added.

NTU guard Talon West is another freshman that has benefited from the personnel change as the Rehoboth Christian High graduate is earning more minutes coming off the bench.

“We have a bunch of scorers on our team and I’m just trying to play my role, which is playing defense and rebounding,” West said. “That is where I fit in, but I’m also being patient, waiting to take my shot.”

Despite the change in personnel, the Skyhawks have not missed a beat, winning four of their last five games heading into this stretch of games.

“We’ve been able to be very competitive even with the changes we made in January,” Floco said. “We’re playing up tempo and we’re averaging 91 points per game and, yeah, we have that ‘next-man up’ mentality.

“The good thing is our guys got a lot of experience early on with our competitive schedule,” he said. “And that is what we keep talking about in how we kind of groomed them to be successful.

“And now, it’s somebody else’s turn to step up,” he added.

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