BILLINGS — Magic. Milestones. A new head coach. Rocky’s basketball men are fresh off one of their most unforgettable seasons. So, how did they pull it off? The opening line of Neil Diamond’s hit "Sweet Caroline" may sum it up best: Where it began …
"Well, really when we felt it, was in the preseason training," sophomore guard/forward Royce Robinson told MTN Sports.
First-year coach Danny Neville and senior guard Omari Nesbit echoed the recollection.
"We made preseason difficult just to weed out the guys that couldn’t make it," Neville said.
WATCH some of the season's most memorable moments and hear the Bears reflect:
"It started in the preseason. Very hard, but very helpful and it got us to where we are now," Nesbit chipped in with a smile.
The Battlin’ Bears were within three wins of claiming an NAIA national title. Their 31-4 record is a slam dunk for most wins and conference wins in program history.
"The real heartbeat behind our team was senior forward Carter McCoy. He was another coach on the floor," Neville said.
In a combination of blowouts, nail-biters and buzzer beaters, these guys reeled off 21 straight wins — another program record.
"We started doing the same things every day," Neville said. “I felt like this group was never satisfied, or like, ‘Hey, we’re on a 10-game winning streak. We’re really good.’ I never felt that.”
The season’s most memorable make was a 60-foot buzzer beater off the fingertips of Omari Nesbit to eliminate Montana Tech by a point in the Frontier Conference semifinal. The moment was just a sliver of team destiny while elevating to win not only the league tournament, but also the regular-season title.
"My initial reaction was, we ran the play wrong," Robinson recalled of Nesbit's desperation heave.
"Haha, I definitely didn’t do the play right," Nesbit said with a laugh.
"I was looking at him, so kind of away from our basket. And I put my hands in the air like, ‘Dang it, that’s our season,’" Robinson continued.
In the moment, Nesbit said he reacted to Montana Tech’s strategy.
"That final play, I’d seen they weren’t close to me. So, I was like, ‘Dang, they’re fixing to let me get this off.’ So, I had confidence that I could get it there, but I didn’t think it was just going to go in like that," Nesbit said.
His coach recalls what happened hours later in a more serene setting.
"The next day, we had shootaround, so the guys were just kind of poking at him. So, they had him shoot the same exact shot … he made it," said Neville in an unsurprised tone.
"I still can’t believe it to this day and I probably never will," Robinson said.
On Monday, Nesbit earned first-team All-America honors in the NAIA, the squad’s first player to do it.
"It’s a crazy feeling because I didn’t know I was the first person in program history to receive that," Nesbit said.
Robinson, meantime, played his way to the NAIA all-tournament team, the first Battlin’ Bear to join that club since Devin Uskoski was named MVP during Rocky’s 2009 national title-winning season.
"My teammates and my coaches put me in those kinds of positions," the Lewistown native said.
It’s a season never to be forgotten loaded with snapshots of fire and greatness. And now we know … where it began.
