The Evergreen State College Geoducks Basketball

Did you even know that Evergreen has a basketball team? I know it’s kind of hard to believe that this school that shunned traditional sports for so long ever allowed there to be an Evergreen basketball team, but in their 11 years of existence, the Geoducks have actually put together a very strong basketball program including one appearance in the NAIA national championships in 2002.
This year’s team is yet again, very strong. They’ve picked up wins against crosstown rival and NCAA Division II St. Martin’s (a team they’ve dominated over the years) and over provisional NCAA Division I Seattle University. Cascade Conference play was a little tougher but they earned the fourth seed in the upcoming playoffs. Timberline graduate Nate Menafee is second in the NAIA in scoring this season and is quite the player to watch. I’ve seen him play twice this season and in the first game, he was blanketed all night with unbelievably tough defense and still scored 23 points. Then on Friday night he put in 34 almost effortless points against Warner Pacific.
The game we went to on Friday night was one of the most interesting games I’ve been to in a while. There wasn’t a big crowd, but it was kind of a wild crowd. A mix of students from Evergreen and Warner Pacific, plus some random guys who played basketball with players for both teams that were rooting for Evergreen, made for an oddly hostile environment. The Evergreen fans and students couldn’t have been more different than the Warner Pacific fans either, adding to the excitement.
It all led to Menafee telling the Warner Pacific fans off, them saying something back to Menafee, Warner Pacific’s coach standing up and yelling at his own fans to shut up and me just sitting there laughing my ass off at the whole thing. I’ve never seen a coach scream at his own fans from across the court like that and then send someone over to chew them out. It was… interesting and kind of gratifying to see them have to shut up, especially after they were celebrating a dunk that didn’t count while they were down 10 points as if they had just won a championship.
Anyway, Evergreen is in the playoffs and will host the opening round. They play on Wednesday, February 25^th at 7:30 PM against the College of Idaho. Tickets are $ 7 for adults and $ 2 for TESC students. If you can make it out there for the game, I think you’ll enjoy watching them play.