March is no doubt the favorite month of the year for anyone involved in coaching college basketball on any level and a pair of Jackson County Central graduates are part of the madness.
For one the tournament experience lasted only one game while the other gets his chance starting Tuesday.
Pat Garvin, head coach at Bethany Lutheran College, saw his Vikings fall to Hope College 79-65 in a first-round NCAA Division III tournament game in Oshkosh, Wis. on Friday.
The Vikings trailed 19-6 just a little over four minutes into the game and 43-21 at halftime. Bethany cut the margin to 11 in the second half but could not get any closer.
Here’s Pat and one of his players at the postgame press conference:
Garvin was named Coach of the Year in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference. The Vikings finished the season with a 23-5 record. That’s the most wins in a single season in program history.
BLC won the UMAC regular-season title with a 12-2 record and also won the conference tournament with wins over Minnesota-Morris and Wisconsin-Superior.
Meanwhile, Brody Anderson is a graduate assistant coach at Peru State in Nebraska, which is in the NAIA tournament and will play in a pod that starts Tuesday in Jamestown, N.D.
The Bobcats will face Mayville (N.D.) State in the early game Tuesday, with the host University of Jamestown Jimmies playing Bethel (Kan.) in the late game. The winners play Wednesday.
Peru State is 24-7 overall and finished 17-5 in Heart of America Athletic Conference play. The Bobcats earned the Heart's second automatic bid after finishing the regular season in second place with William Penn winning the regular season and conference tournament.