The last time Portland State fans watched their men’s basketball squad play in the Stott Center, the team struggled to victories over Seattle, a program transitioning from Division II to Division I, and Lewis and Clark, a Division III program.
Since then, the Vikings embarked on an epic stretch of basketball, traveling thousands of miles to play the most difficult schedule in program history, and on the way captured the attention of the nation with their strong play.
Included in that stretch of seven road games was a narrow one-point defeat at Washington and victories over then-No. 7 ranked Gonzaga and Texas Southern.
Head coach Ken Bone’s squad carried the momentum from the self-described biggest win in school history into Big Sky play last weekend as they easily defeated Sacramento State and then scraped out a win over Northern Arizona in four overtimes last Sunday.
“The travel itself is hard because it just kind of wears you out,” Bone said after his team’s practice on Wednesday. “You don’t sleep as well in a hotel bed. It’s also just different playing on someone else’s court.”
When the Vikings defeated Northern Arizona and earned the Big Sky Conference’s automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament last season they were paired up with eventual national champion Kansas in the first round of March Madness.
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The Vikings looked overwhelmed at times against the athletic and talented Jayhawks as they fell 85-61.
In addition to dealing with the typical offseason challenges, Bone was faced with a new challenge: constructing a schedule to prepare his team more competitively for postseason play.
The result is a schedule that includes games against local powerhouse Gonzaga, a resurgent Washington team that seems likely to find itself in the NCAA Tournament and Baylor, which has been consistently ranked after making it to the Big Dance in 2008.
Bone said earlier this year that traditional in-state rivals Oregon and Oregon State would not schedule a game with the Vikings this year, thus increasing the likelihood that the Vikings would have to travel to get a taste of primetime competition before conference play began.
And while the results certainly have not been perfect—the Vikings stumbled on the road at Cal Poly and nearly gave away a conference game to Northern Arizona—the team has improved and should be more prepared for the tougher tests that lie ahead.
But it has come at a price.
Since Thanksgiving the Vikings have traveled to Alaska, Seattle, California (twice), Spokane, Texas and Arizona.
Players spent Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s away from family and friends.
All this to prepare the squad for what fans hope will be another trip to the NCAA Tournament, which would be the school’s second straight and number two overall.
“I think that the traveling and the tough games against good teams have helped us come together a bit,” Bone said. “Our kids are real excited to get to play at home in front of our crowd and we will hopefully play with a bunch of energy.