Men's Basketball | 02/22/24 | 12:25 PM

HELENA, Mont. - The Carroll Basketball teams will take on Rocky Mountain College tonight in a pair of late-season games from the Fortin Education Center in Billings, Mont. The Women will tip at 5 p.m. and the Men are set to follow at 7 p.m.

The Fighting Saints have locked up their respective positions for the upcoming Frontier Conference Tournaments next weekend in Great Falls, but both the Men and Women still have plenty to play for.

The No. 8-ranked Carroll Women have already clinched the outright Frontier Conference Championship, but don't expect a lax effort from the Saints in Billings this evening.

With just two games remaining in the season, the Saints are now in a fight for postseason positioning at the national level. Tournament basketball is as unpredictable as anything, but fortune certainly favors top seeds. The NAIA National Basketball Championship features 16 First and Second Round pods, each with four teams playing to advance to the final site of Sioux City, Iowa. As of right now, Carroll likely slots in as a No. 2-seed in the National Tournament, but a strong finish to the season could help propel the Saints into having a very strong case for one of the four top seeds come March.

Jamie Pickens (Helena, Mont. / GR) has been the league's most dominant player, and will look for double-double No. 20 on the season tonight against a Battlin' Bears team that was at one point ranked inside the nation's top-12, but has since fallen out of the polls entirely.

The Bears are still a highly-capable team, and have played Carroll tough in Billings in recent memory, winning four of the last six games played at the Fortin Center. Carroll will look to continue the Frontier's longest win-streak, and grab their seventh-straight win this evening against Rocky.

The Carroll Men are deadlocked into the No. 2 spot for the upcoming Frontier Tournament, which comes with a well-deserved opening round bye.

While the Women are a near 100 percent lock to play in the NAIA tournament, the Carroll Men are very much fighting for an at-large spot, should they not win the Frontier's atuo-bid next weekend at the conference tourney.

A rough start to the non-conference portion of the schedule featuring some close losses put the Saints behind the eight ball heading into league play, but Carroll has been outstanding in the back-half of the season.

After being written off near the midway point of the year, the Saints have bounced back in a big way, with their only three conference losses coming to the hands of No. 10 Montana Tech. A win tonight in Billings, paired with a win in the season finale against MSU-Northern, could be enough to get Carroll into the dance regardless of how the conference tournament shakes out.

Carroll will surely turn towards Andrew Cook (Huntington Beach, Calif. / JR), who continues to lead the league in scoring with 20.6 points per game. The Saints have won each of the two previous meetings with the Bears this season, and hope to secure the season sweep to continue their postseason push.

Tip off for the Women's game is slated for 5 p.m. with the Men to follow at 7 p.m.

Both games will be streamed live HERE.

Catch Voice of the Saints, Nick Dietzen, and Carroll Hall of Famer, Gary Turcott, call the action live on Rewind 94.9 FM or online HERE.

Live stats for the Women can be found HERE, and live stats for the Men HERE.

Visit www.carrollathletics.com this evening for a recap of the action, and to stay up to date with everything going on in Carroll Athletics.