Reznet

March Madness for Tribal Colleges

By Charles Pulliam

 

PABLO, Mont.—Sunday presented a sweet feeling of accomplishment for Andrae Domebo and Dani Augare.

Domebo provided the necessary inside presence to help lift the Salish Kootenai College men’s basketball team to the championship of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium national tournament and Augare led the Lady Bison to the women’s title.

Domebo celebrated with his teammates at midcourt following their 100-92 victory over Blackfeet Community College of Browning, Mont. He posted a double-double with 24 points and 10 rebounds for the Bison, one of his best games since joining the team in January. He is a student at Salish Kootenai College, taking his courses via satellite from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., but made the trip here to the Flathead Indian Reservation for the tournament.

“It feels good. It feels really good,” Domebo said his team’s win. “This is a brand-new gym here at SKC and we wanted to come out and represent it strong. We all worked hard throughout the season and we all deserved this.”

The men’s championship game marked the end of a four-day, action-filled blend of March Madness in Pablo with more than 50 games played between the 10 men’s teams and eight women’s teams.

“It was a long road, but it sure was fun,” Augare said after scoring 37 points to lead the Salish Kootenai women to a 92-69 romp of Turtle Mountain Community College of Belcourt, N.D., in the championship game.

Augare, from Browning, Mont., had to leave the team last season because of personal reasons, making this year her first AIHEC tournament.

“We had some tough games throughout the year and got beat by some good junior colleges,” Augare said, referring to her team’s sub-par 7-14 record entering the tournament. “It only made us tougher, though. It’s been an exciting weekend.”

The tribal basketball tournament is held annually, inviting all 36 tribal colleges from around the nation. Lady Bison coach Juan Perez called it the “tribal college version of the NCAA national tournament.” Only a handful of schools have the resources to put together a team. The Institute of American Indian Arts is an example of a team’s eagerness to represent its school as the six IAIA men pulled together just for the tour-nament so they could showcase their school, located in Santa Fe, N.M.

“A lot of colleges do that,” Perez said. “As the years have gone on, the teams have all gotten pretty com-petitive.”

New Facility Draws Tournament

It was the first time the AIHEC tournament was hosted in the area since Polson held it in 1996, but it won’t be the last at the 15-month-old $5.5 million Joe McDonald Health and Fitness Center on the Salish Kootenai College campus.

Joe McDonald, whom the new 2,300 seat gym is named after, is the longtime president of the college after helping establish the school more than 30 years ago.

As the Bison teams converged at center court Sunday, earning hoots and hollers from family and friends while sporting their new AIHEC National Championship jackets, McDonald simply stood back and smiled.

“I know both teams really wanted it really bad, so it turned out very well,” he said of the champions. “It was really great that we were able to do it.”

McDonald led the charge several years ago to make a sports facility on the Salish Kootenai campus a real-ity. Bison teams had to practice wherever they could prior to its completion in December 2007.

“If he wouldn’t have fought the way he did, we wouldn’t have got this,” Bison men’s coach Zach Camel said. “Shoot, there’s hardly any gyms like this in Montana. It’s a blessing. Without Joe’s dreams for this school, nothing like this would have happened.”

The gym is essentially a step toward establishing basketball teams worthy of joining a conference, such as Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan., did when it became an NAIA-affiliated school or, more recently, Little Big Horn College in 2007. The Rams joined the junior college ranks in basketball.

McDonald said making the transition to the junior college level in athletics might be the next step. His team backed up the statement, pulling out a 116-99 victory over Little Big Horn on Jan. 11.

“If we want to improve the program and make it even better, we will want to join a conference such as the Frontier Conference,” McDonald said. “We’re kind of in between right now. We’re also kind of isolated schedule-wise too, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

Men’s Championship

It was not only the first time the AIHEC tournament was held in the new gym but also the first tournament for most of the 10-man roster for the Salish Kootenai men. John Young is the only returnee from last year’s team. The Bison were 12-9 in season games.

Guided by Camel, Sailsh Kootenai is no stranger to tangling for the title, though.

This year marked the fourth AIHEC championship in six years for the Bison.

“I think we kind of have the winning plan,” chuckled Camel, who led his team to its fifth AIHEC title in 11 years.

Part of that winning plan is built around 6-foot-1 Dane Fisher of Lame Deer, Mont.

The talented guard snaked his way through Blackfeet Pikuni defenders and drained five of six of his three-point attempts to finish with 37 points Sunday. He scored 35 in the Bison’s semifinal win over Northwest Indian College of Bellingham, Wash., earlier in the day.

“He’s a sharp shooter,” Camel said. “He’ll get by you and plant and explode up and you don’t got no chance (to stop him).”

Domebo complemented Fisher in the post. Domebo converted a pair of three-point plays midway through the second half to give Salish Kootenai a double-digit lead.

Fisher added three straight buckets in less than a minute to give the Bison its biggest advantage at 92-74 with under four minutes remaining.

The Pikuni, which is the Blackfeet word for people, answered with a deep three-pointer from C.J. Aims Back that triggered an 11-2 spurt to trim the gap to nine.

But Fisher put the game out of reach by poking the ball loose in the backcourt and sailing in for another easy layup. A couple of late baskets from the Pikuni provided the final score.

Aims Back collected 27 points, 11 rebounds and three steals to lead Blackfeet Community College, which topped Oglala Lakota College of Kyle, S.D., in the semifinals.

A pair of former Salish Kootenai players suited up for the Pikuni: Delbert Trombley, who was MVP of the 2007 tournament, and Ed Running Rabbit.

The duo combined to produce just eight points against their former team.

In the third place matchup, Northwest Indian College received 18 points from Marvin Hudson to beat Oglala Lakota, 61-50.

Women’s Championship

In the women’s title game, Salish Kootenai wanted to avenge a loss to Turtle Mountain suffered in the semifinals last year in Bismarck, N.D. The Lady Bison had to settle for third after winning the champion-ship the year before in South Dakota.

“It really seems like we just outlasted them,” Salish Kootenai women’s coach Juan Perez said. “I know what it’s like traveling so far to the tournament, but they are a great program.”

Salish Kootenai rolled to a 50-33 halftime lead behind the post play of Carla McLean and the outside shooting of Augare.

McLean scored 14 of her 22 points in the first half, while Augare sank three treys.

Turtle Mountain managed to get within 11 early in the second half but never got any closer.

“I knew our girls weren’t going to lose on their home court in front of their crowd,” Perez said.

Carmelita Matt added 10 points for the Lady Bison.

Shannon Gunville scored 26 to lead the Mikinocks and Erin Lambert chipped in 17.

The Oglala Lakota women claimed third place with a 89-63 win over Stone Child College of Box Elder, Mont. Tera Cuny finished with 24 points and Daisy Her Many Horses scored 22 to lead Oglala Lakota.

“I think our seasons weren’t going to be complete without winning,” Perez said. “Both the men’s and women’s team spent a lot of hours (in this gym). It’s amazing both teams did this.”

Charles Pulliam, Alaskan Aleut, is a senior studying journalism at the University of Montana in Missoula. Pulliam will be a reporting intern this summer at the Denver bureau of The Associated Press.

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