POINT LOOKOUT, Mo. – Coach Jim Kessler and Grace College’s men’s basketball team are taking a baseball-like approach to the NAIA Division II National Tournament. “We don’t want to go down taking pitches,” said Kessler. “If we go down, we want to go down swinging.” After advancing to the Elite Eight of the 32-team, single-elimination tournament in 2008 and 2009, the Lancers lost first-round games in both 2011 and 2012. The tournament, which started this morning, is once again being held near Branson, Mo., at College of the Ozarks’ Keeter Gymnasium. Kessler and the Lancers are hoping for another deep tournament run. They don’t want to experience that empty feeling of being one-and-done again. “We’ve gone to the tournament the last couple years with such high expectations,” said Kessler. “I don’t wanna say we overlooked our first-round opponent, but we didn’t take care of business. This year we’re focusing more on ourselves and what we need to do. With this group, we need to say loose and have fun.” The Lancers begin tournament play Thurday at 5 p.m. ET when they square off with the Tennessee Wesleyan Bulldogs. Grace enters the game with a 21-9 record, which includes a 13-5 mark and second-place finish in the regular-season standings of the always-rugged and highly-respected Crossroads League. Tennessee Wesleyan is riding an 18-game winning streak and takes a 25-7 record into Thursday’s first-round matchup. The Bulldogs posted a 15-1 record in the Appalachian Athletic Conference and also won the conference tournament. “They play an uptempo game,” Kessler said of the Bulldogs. “They score in the 90s, and they get up and down the floor. They kinda remind me a little bit of the way Bethel plays, because they like the uptempo style. Traditionally, we’ve fared well against uptempo teams.” In their last matchup with Bethel, the Lancers defeated their conference rival 96-83 in Mishawaka. Bethel, led by three-time national champion coach Mike Lightfoot, is also in the tournament. The Pilots, who won the Crossroads League Tournament and whose roster includes former Warsaw standout Jordan Coon, were scheduled to play Embry-Riddle (Fla.) today at 1 p.m. ET. Indiana Wesleyan, the regular-season champion of the Crossroads League, plays Lourdes (Ohio) Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Indiana Wesleyan’s roster includes former Whitko standout Zac Vandewater. Grace has wins over both Bethel and Indiana Wesleyan, and the Lancers are the only team in the Crossroads Leaue to beat every conference team at least once. “We play in a very tough conference,” said Kessler. “It’s a battle every night in our conference. Hopefully that has prepared us for the national tournament.” Masseyratings.com ranks the Crossroads League as the toughest NAIA Division II men’s basketball conference in the country. The Appalachian Athletic Conference, on the other hand, is ranked 11th. The website ranks Grace 13th in the country, while Tennessee Wesleyan is 23rd. Five Crossroads Leagues teams are ranked in the top 16 on the website. None of that really matters, however. On Thursay, the Lancers have to prove they’re better on the court, not just on the Internet. “We need to come out and take care of business,” said Kessler. “When our ‘big three’ is doing their thing, we’re pretty good. We need big games from those guys, and we need our guys to step up and do their thing.” Grace’s ‘big three’ is seniors Bruce Grimm Jr. and Elliot Smith and junior Greg Miller. Grimm, the Crossroads League Defensive Player of the Year, averages 17 points, five assists, three rebounds and two steals per game. Miller, who makes 54 percent of his field goal attempts overall and 40 percent from three-point range, averages 17 points and nine rebounds per contest. Smith averages 11 points per game and makes 41 percent of his three-point attempts. For Tennessee Wesleyan, Desmond Crisp averages 16 points per game. Four other Bulldogs also score in double figures – Tyler Burse (15), Zamarius McClendon (15), Shannon Smith (12) and Matt Harper (11). Making their seventh appearance, the Lancers own an 8-5 record in the national tournament. The Bulldogs have yet to win a game in the national tournament, as they are 0-4 and have lost those games by an average of 21 points. They lost by 26 points in the first-round last year. Tennessee Wesleyan played one Crossroads League team this year, beating Mt. Vernon Nazarene by 10 points. The Lancers played Mt. Vernon twice, winning by 27 points and 19 points.
