College hoops: Dominican women have high hopes as PacWest tournament hosts

When coach Tim LaKose arrived at Dominican University five seasons ago, he had a road map in place for how he wanted to build the women’s basketball program up into a contender.

As fate would have it, the program’s arrival as a PacWest title contender has coincided with the school’s first opportunity to host the basketball championships.

Dominican is set to host the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments beginning with the quarterfinals on Thursday and building up to the championship games on Saturday.

“We’re so stoked,” Dominican guard Anjelica Collins said. “It’s great to see that the tourney has moved up north a bit more. Every year we’ve always gone to the L.A. area. … We’ve really been preparing for it. The school as a whole is really excited about it.”

The Penguins (21-5, 18-4 PacWest) were good enough this season to earn the No. 2 seed and the first-round bye that comes with it. Dominican opens play at 5 p.m. Friday in a semifinal against the winner of Thursday’s game between No. 3 Hawaii Pacific and No. 6 Concordia.

“The first year we came in we had that road map — where our expectation is to win the conference and compete in the NCAAs,” LaKose said “It’s been a process. Each year we’ve gotten closer and closer. This year is the best record we’ve had, having those expectations and working hard towards that.

“Obviously the players win the games. Getting players like Natalie (Diaz), Alanna (Scott), Anjelica — those players have really worked hard and led by example and held the team accountable. They’ve been a pleasure to work with and I give them a lot of credit for getting us to this point.”

Prior to LaKose’s arrival, the Penguins had struggled to grow accustomed to life as an NCAA Division II team, having moved up from the NAIA in 2009. The Penguins had a 33-101 record in the five seasons before LaKose got there and have gone 86-53 with five consecutive winning seasons since.

“Turning a program from worst to first, you have to have a plan in place and you have to get players who really want to work to make that happen,” LaKose said. “You can have a great plan but if they don’t put in the work it’s not going to happen. When you put a plan with that together, that’s when the magic happens.

“There’s a big difference between Year 1 and now. Year 1 we’d hope we’d win and now we expect to win.That’s a huge difference.”

The Penguins have had a serious run of top-tier talent over the past five seasons with Alyssa “Dani” Weatherd, Sandra Ikeora and now Natalie Diaz putting up huge numbers as post players in LaKose’s system.

“I think a lot of people can recognize talent,” LaKose said. “You see Nat, Sandy, Dani — yeah, they’re talented. I think what we do really well is we develop that talent and you can see their numbers — like Sandy’s numbers from freshman year to last year, Nat’s numbers — so developing that and getting them to believe mentally and physically that they’re capable of greatness, that’s what’s fun as a coach.”

Diaz is the No. 2 D-II scorer in the country, averaging 26.5 points per game to go along with 8.8 rebounds. On Wednesday, Diaz was named the PacWest Conference Player of the year after sharing the award last season.

“I’ve known Nat since high school,” Collins said. “We played against each other. She’s always been that person you need to watch out for. … She can do it all. She’s an amazing player, amazing team captain. When we’re down, she knows how to get us up.”

Collins and Scott are the other two senior leaders on the team, with Scott being the team’s most prolific shooter (78 made 3s on the season) and second-leading scorer (16.2 ppg) while Collins runs the offense and is the team’s primary defender.

“(Collins) does a lot of the intangibles,” LaKose said. “I think her assist-to-turnover ratio might be the best in the country — certainly one of them. She really gets the ball to the right people in the right place. She’s typically our No. 1 defender. Whoever our opponent’s top scorer is, she guards them.”

The team is missing one key cog in sophomore Julia Razo, the team’s third-leading scorer at 10.2 points per game. Razo has been out with an injury since Jan. 24.

The Penguins will likely see Hawaii Pacific in the semifinal on Friday night, a team they’ve got a lot of history with.

“Hawaii Pacific is the defending champion and they have a very good team,” LaKose said. “We’ve beaten them twice (this season) — first time we’ve ever beaten them twice, first time we’ve ever beaten them over there. We played them a couple years in the conference tournament and beat them and then last year they beat us in the semifinals.

“We always seem to face each other in the championships.”

PacWest Championships
Dominican University is hosting the conference basketball tournaments this week, the first time the tournaments have been held in Northern California. The Penguins are the No. 2 seed on the women’s side and open play at 5 p.m. on Friday.
Thursday
Men: No. 3 Chaminade (19-10, 16-6) vs. No. 6 Holy Names (12-15, 11-11), 12:30 p.m., winner plays No. 2 Concordia (22-9, 18-4)
Men: No. 4 Azusa Pacific (22-6, 16-6) vs. No. 5 Academy of Art (11-16, 11-11), 2:45 p.m., winner plays No. 1 Point Loma (24-2, 20-2)
Women: No. 3 Hawaii Pacific (20-8. 18-4) vs. No. 6 Concordia (10-17, 9-13), 5 p.m., winner plays No. 2 Dominican (21-5, 18-4)
Women: No. 4 Point Loma (18-10, 17-5) vs. No. 5 Fresno Pacific (19-9, 15-7), 7:15 p.m., winner plays No. 1 Azusa Pacific (24-4, 21-1)