Blue Star’s Travis Ponton joined the staff of Loyola University last July and was a part of successful 26 – 6 campaign that led to a trip to the NAIA Division I National Championship Tournament in Billings, Montana.  A veteran coach on multiple levels, Travis shares his  thoughts and observations on both the NAIA as well as the host city of Billings. 

BILLINGS, Mont. – “I’ve never even been to Montana.”

That was a popular statement this past week for myself and all of our new players as we packed our bags, hopped on a plane, and waved goodbye to the 70 degree New Orleans sunshine and headed north to Big Sky Country.

This was my first year on the coaching staff at Loyola University New Orleans after all, and a conference tournament championship and 20 plus win season meant another trip to the NAIA National Tournament (Fifth consecutive and 10th all time) was in store for our program. For the second straight year, Billings, Montana played host to 32 teams vying for a National Title and the chance to cut down some nets.

Here’s a quick fact check for you. Did you know that the NAIA has two divisions that award athletic scholarships for students to continue their education and playing careers at the next level? Division I NAIA schools, like Loyola, can give up to 11 full scholarships in women’s basketball, the second most of any level of collegiate basketball following the Women’s NCAA D-I limit of 15.  Time and time recruiting conversations begin with that fact often because, to many, that is news in and of itself.

Coming to an NAIA school after years at the NCAA D-I level, it was hard to fully know what to expect, but I was fully aware that this was a great level of basketball. Look at some of those early season exhibition box scores with D-I programs if you have any doubt. Look closely and you’ll notice that college basketball  on many levels is often very regionalized.  Some of those regions and states do not have any NAIA schools, just as other places don’t have D-II or D-III colleges. Personally, having grown up in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast, my basketball experience outside of the D-I level is was already well-versed in D-II and D-III for example.

Fast forward to Billings and this year’s national tournament. From the moment our plane landed, the NAIA D-I Women’s Basketball National Tournament was made into a big deal.  Riding down the escalator to get our bags, the tournament logo stamped on the lobby floor was prominent and impossible to miss. It would be a common theme we would experience throughout the week as everywhere we went in town featured welcome signs and tournament brackets.

Everyone got the feeling early on that this was a big event not just for the city of Billings, but for the entire state of Montana. The Visit Billings team did a tremendous job of creating that atmosphere across the city. Skeptics from the outside may wonder, why Billings? If a population of just over 110,000 doesn’t make you question if a bigger locale might provide a better setting, the fact that Billings is the largest city within 500 miles in any direction surely would. And those skeptics would be wrong!  The community support and participation in this tournament was off the charts.

Every team is assigned an area school to visit during the week. While it’s a great experience for the student athletes to spend time with these youngsters it gets even better come game time. When you look up and see hundreds of those same faces packing the stands, cheering loudly for their teams, with hand painted signs and all, you start to feel right at home.

For many of the teams in this tournament, it’s a safe bet that they were playing in front of some of the biggest crowds they’d seen all season, which made for an awesome atmosphere in Rimrock Arena. For some “extra” atmosphere, high school pep bands assembled on the baselines and had the place rocking. The arena itself was just about the perfect size for this event as well, not too big, but not too small.

At the tournament Parade of Champions opening ceremony, Montana’s Governor Steve Bullock addressed the entire crowd.  Regional TV stations had live coverage of all the action, and the sports section of the local newspaper had NAIA women’s basketball front and center, even while UMBC was upsetting UVA and with all the other March Madness going on.

The student athlete experience is a hot button topic in recent years and the NAIA has made it clear that this tournament puts that very idea at the forefront. Every team had a local corporate sponsor to show them around and even take them to the best food spots in town. The city rolled out the red carpet (literally) on the first night before the games even started, hosting a great dinner and awards banquet featuring guest speakers, gifts for the student-athletes, and much more.

Last, but not least, it had to be the wonderful people that made this week complete. We met folks from all over the state who came to town just to watch great women’s basketball. Volunteers working the practice sites and the arena sidelines clearly love the game and had done their research on the participating teams. Total strangers would introduce themselves, ask you where you were from, what your record was, and who you would be playing in the next round. Going to lunch, the manager would ask us to autograph a sign hanging in the restaurant, and I don’t think I met a single person who wasn’t aware that the tournament was in town.

All of this goes to show that it doesn’t take a huge metropolitan city to support great women’s basketball. It takes great ideas and a mobilized, energetic community led by people who come together and to make something special happen. This isn’t intended as a means of comparison, but more a form of appreciation. Those of us who love the game of basketball say that March is the most wonderful time of the year, and the NAIA and the city of Billings, Montana did their part to make it just that.

The 2019 NAIA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament will once again return to the Rimrock Auto Arena and as word of this not-so-hidden gem continues to grow, I have no doubt that the people of Billings will rise to the occasion once more for March Madness…Montana style.