Mayville State is making its third straight trip to the NAIA Division II national men's basketball tournament. The 14-hour bus trip to Point Lookout, Mo., is now a routine.
William Penn, meanwhile, hasn't had its postseason bus fired up since 1983 - the last time the Statesmen qualified for the national playoffs.
Mayville is hoping its national tournament experience will be beneficial against William Penn tonight when the teams meet in a first-round NAIA tournament game on the College of the Ozarks campus.
Mayville reached the quarterfinal round at last year's NAIA tournament. The Comets are expecting more this season.
"Hopefully, we'll play all five games this year," Mayville coach Craig Smith said. "Our first year there, everyone was just happy to be there. Last year, and this year, you can sense we're going there for a purpose."
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Mayville, which won the Dakota Athletic Conference regular-season and postseason tournament titles for the last two seasons, is 23-8. The Comets are seeded 13th in the 32-team tournament. William Penn, located in Oskaloosa, Iowa, is unseeded and 25-8 after winning the Midwest Classic Conference title.
"They have very good perimeter players," Smith said. "They shoot 25 three-pointers a game. They've attempted 300 more 3-pointers than their opponents. And they like to take away their opponents' 3-point attempts. They're very aggressive defensively."
Guard Ryan Norman leads William Penn with a 16.4 points-per-game average, while Jacob Spielbauer averages 14.1 points.
The Comets are smaller than William Penn but have athletic players Monty Rogers (18.0 ppg) and Ron Howard (15.9 ppg) leading the way. Matt Stenehjem, a former Grand Forks Red River standout, and Tremel Gilot also are in double figures, averaging 11.6 ppg and 11.3 ppg, respectively.
"We're going to have to defend and rebound," Smith said. "When we rebound well, we're usually pretty good. We say that because we're undersized. We have to take advantage of changing up our defenses and changing the pace of the game.
"It's to our advantage when it's an up-tempo game. We average 85 points per game. Not a lot of teams run as well as we do. They average 80 because of all the threes they make."
The winner of tonight's game plays the winner of the Huntington, Ind.-Florida Memorial game Friday night. Quarterfinals are set for Saturday, with semifinals scheduled for Monday. The national championship game is Tuesday.
College of the Ozarks, which beat Mayville in last year's quarterfinal round, is defending national champion.
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Reach Nelson at 780-1268, (800) 477-6572 ext. 268 or wnelson@gfherald.com .
