Three weeks into the 2022-23 junior college basketball season and both the men’s and women’s basketball squads are learning plenty about themselves.

The Lady Raiders are currently 5-0 overall and now ranked 23rd in the latest NJCAA Division I polls after surprisingly not even finding a seat anywhere at the table for early recognition.

Then the men’s team has dealt with a recent four-game skid that has come at the hands of some highly credible opponents including No. 2 Indian Hills CC, No. 19 John A. Logan and a formidable Southeastern Iowa squad. All that while trying to forge an identity can be really tough.

Lady Raiders finding right mix with strong start

The Lady Raiders head to Neosho for games on both Friday and Saturday as part of the Region XVI Classic at Crowder College.

It was the newest road challenge for the squad who had arguably its toughest test to date with last weekend’s 70-53 at Vincennes University, pulling away late after leading by eight going into the final quarter.

“They played really hard and really physical and everyone who plays at Vincennes, you know you are not going to get any calls,” Lady Raiders head coach Alex Wiggs said. “I thought the girls did a great job and we have to do a better job handling that. But for us being a brand-new team in different roles, I thought we handled it really well. It was a close game, but we still won by 17.

“My goal every game is to win by at least one point. We get spoiled when we are fortunate to have a really good team and it’s 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 and we get used to that.”

The one thing was the Lady Raiders proved they could take a good team’s best shot and answer the bell which is a positive thing going forward as the schedule thickens.

“I wish every game was more like that so it prepares us for the post season,” Wiggs said. “Not every game is like that, so I definitely feel we’ve gotten better from that and have had a good week of practice ready to enter the showcase the weekend.”

The Lady Raiders are averaging 92.6 points per game while surrendering 52.4. They are shooting at a 46.8 percent clip overall, and 31.7 percent from beyond the arc while hitting 71.9 percent from the charity stripe. Most impressively, they are assisting on 21.2 of 32.6 shots made per game, an outstanding 67 percent clip.

The Three Rivers defense has been suffocating, holding opponents to 33.5 percent overall and a measly 16.3 percent from the 3-point line.

Maiya Bergdorf (14.8 ppg, 6.3 rpg), Da’Kariya Jackson (14.4 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 4.2 apg, 5.0 spg), Ari Winston (12.3 ppg, 6.5 rpg), Jenna McMillen (10.4 ppg, 5.2 apg, 2.4 spg), Niaisya Ervin (9.6 ppg) and Ahniya Melton (6.6 rpg in 20.6 minutes per outing or an average of 13 over the course of 40 minutes) lead the Lady Raiders so far this season.

After playing so many games in a relatively short period of time, the team has finally had some time to practice — after not being able to from Nov. 4 through the past Sunday.

“The Vincennes game was the fifth game in a seven-day battle,” Wiggs said. “That made them grow up and mature pretty quickly. I thought they did a great job. It’s shown in practice the last two days and they have really gotten after it.”

The nice thing is the blending of a half-dozen newbies with the same amount of returning veterans.

“The exciting thing is the chemistry and they are trying to understand and trust each other more and more on the court,” Wiggs said. “When you have so many new kids in so many different roles, it takes time. I am happy with the growth we have made and in trusting each other on offense and defense.

“It’s not about me, but more about us thing.”

Wiggs would still like to see the ladies perfect their levels of execution.

“We are getting our first and second options of our plays, but need to work on getting our third and fourth,” Wiggs said. “It’s being able to run a play all the way through in case a defense takes away options one and two.”

Essentially, Wiggs wants his team to be able to go to the grind offensively against higher-level defenses that will make his squad work for points and make it still happen.

“I don’t like to go multiple positions where we don’t score or don’t get quality shots up,” he said. “We have got to be able to run those sets whenever we face teams that can get a couple stops in a row or force turnovers.”

Men’s team trying to cultivate consistency

Two Division II teams await the Three Rivers Raiders men’s basketball team this weekend and the hope is the squad can use the experience of playing four quality opponents over the previous 10-plus days to their benefit.

Head coach Brian Bess will see his Raiders take on Illinois Central College at 5 p.m. Friday at Mineral Area College and then Arkansas State Mid-South at 3 p.m. Saturday at the same location.

Bess said that after six games, he has appreciated his young men’s ability to compete and battle back in the second half following some adjustments at the break and the want to fight despite some early deficits.

“We have to get better at competing for 40 minutes than just 20,” Bess said. “The biggest thing is probably our inexperience, but we have had six games so we should be further along in that area.

“If we figured it out why (it happens), we wouldn’t have slow starts. I thought we had great energy in warmups last game and were tied (late) in the first half (against Southeastern) and the last six minutes were bad.”

Bess said there is a possibility that his guys tend to play the opponents’ name and not just playing the game regardless.

“That’s a hard thing to coach to,” Bess said. “One of the reasons is the media and social media and they are doing a little bit of homework. Gene Bess would tell a team that (the opponent) is good, and they’d have no idea. Now, they might be playing a little scared when they play a John A. Logan or Indian Hills because they are ranked really high. Then when they haven’t heard of a team, I think we might take them a little bit lightly.

“That could be a concern this weekend because they might not have heard about Illinois Central.”

Illinois Central enters the Friday contest with a 2-2 record.

The one thing is the Three Rivers culture of being able to fight to the end and Bess admits slow starts may not yet be a thing of the past.

“It’s an area we have to focus on more, for sure,” Bess said.

The Raiders have scored 76.2 points per game while surrendering 73.8 per game and they shoot 41.1 percent compared to 42.7 of the opponents.

Three Rivers is averaging a highly respectable 13 turnovers a night while assisting only 10 of 27 makes per night.

Leading the way this year has been Jordan Hamilton (14.8 ppg, 6.6 rpg), Lamont Jackson (11.8 ppg), Hosane Kitenge (10.8 ppg, 9.0 rpg), B.J. Francis (10.7 ppg, 3.8 apg) and Mo Niang (10.7 ppg, 5.0 rpg).

Bess has seen some even distribution game-wide, but it’s more about taking the big shots where he hopes to see more than Hamilton and Kitenge take those chances. However, as of late, others are starting to get into the mix of putting up big shots and showing some successes.

The defense can also be tweaked a little bit more.

“It’s about guarding the ball and keeping the ballhandler in front of us,” Bess said. “When we get beat, we have to play help and recover the rest of the possession because we gamble or try to steal it. If we can do a better job containing the ball, we would be more solid on defense and be better at making things even harder to make shots.”

Alan Dale - Daily American Republic