Shootout notebook: Sled dogs, northern lights and a player-turned-broadcaster

Alaska basketball fans aren't the only ones who will feel the void when the Great Alaska Shootout ends.

The tournament has provided countless players with adventures they otherwise never may have experienced.

On Monday, the women's teams from University of Tulsa and Binghamton University spent time seeing sights they'll probably never see in Oklahoma or New York.

Tulsa visited Martin Buser's kennel in Big Lake, where the Golden Hurricane cuddled puppies and learned about the Iditarod.

Coach Matilda Mossman said listening to Buser talk about his dogs was like hearing a basketball coach talk about her players.

"You could tell how excited he is about what he does," she said. "He wasn't bragging about being a four-time champion, he just talked about preparation. He talked about his dogs being athletes.

"I think he really tried to relate it to basketball players: When you lose a dog, it's like losing a person in your five-man lineup. Sixteen dogs can pull harder than 14 dogs, and five guys working together is a lot better than four guys working together and one guy just standing off to the side.

"I really liked how he related what he does with racing to what we do with basketball."

The Binghamton Bearcats, meanwhile, really lucked out — they got to see Monday's brilliant display of northern lights.

"Our bus driver became a tour guide, so he took us (to a park) and the kids were really excited," said coach Linda Cimino. "We have a couple kids taking (astronomy) so they really enjoyed that."

The Bearcats lost a close first-round game to Tulsa, 60-55, and although Cimino lamented some missed free throws early and some missed field goals late, she said there's more to Binghamton's road trip than wins and losses.

"The fact of the matter is we have kids that have never been on a plane before, and they're playing in Alaska," she said. "And what a great opportunity for these young women. It's something they're going to remember for the rest of their lives.

"This is what this little orange basketball provides — such great opportunities for all of us to just travel all over the country and see new places and meet new people, and we are really appreciative of this opportunity."

Tough interview

One of the hardest parts of Jordan Martin's part-time gig as a television sportscaster is interviewing her former coach.

Martin's senior season on the UAA women's basketball season was Ryan McCarthy's first season as the Seawolves coach. That was five years ago, and in the interim Martin graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and landed a job with PDC Engineers of Anchorage.

For the last three seasons she has covered the UAA women's home games for GCI's Channel 907 (cable Channel 1), and while she said she has become more comfortable on camera, she still struggles when it's time to quiz McCarthy about his team's performances.

"I have a hard time interviewing him, because he's still Coach to me," Martin said Tuesday after covering UAA's 69-59 win over Maryland Eastern Shore in the first round of the GCI Great Alaska Shootout.

"It's been challenging getting used to it. But it's made me grow as a person the last three years. I never would have thought I'd be broadcasting games as an engineering major."

Martin played four years of basketball at East High, was a redshirt on UAA's national runner-up team in 2008-09 and then played four seasons as a reserve guard for the Seawolves.

In her senior season, the Seawolves were a team in turmoil. McCarthy had been hired to replace Tim Moser, who departed with no explanation after six wildly successful years (more than a year later, an NCAA investigation revealed that Moser had provided impermissible benefits to some of his players at UAA). A number of players quit the team after Moser left, and Martin was one of just a handful of veterans on board when McCarthy arrived.

Martin got more playing time than ever that season and averaged 5.6 points and 2.8 rebounds a game to help UAA go 17-10. In the four-plus seasons since then, McCarty and the Seawolves have lost only 16 times.

"I don't know that we set the foundation," Martin said of that 2012-13 transitional team, "but I know that we gave it a real good starting point to move forward."

Wedge warriors

There's never a 7-footer around when you need one.

Monday night during the women's game between UAA and Maryland Eastern Shore, the ball got wedged between the backboard and the back iron of the rim, which stands 10 feet above the court.

Often when that happens, someone tall jumps up and taps the ball loose. Often that person is a man.

When it happened this time, everyone stood around for a minute before 6-foot Shelby Cloninger gave it a try. She jumped from her standing position under the hoop and was maybe a fingertip short of knocking the ball free.

Just as one of the referees was about to take care of business with the handle of a mop, 5-foot-10 Dominique Walker from Maryland Eastern Shore took a running start from about the free throw line and soared high enough to tip the ball loose, earning applause from the crowd.

Name game

Bearcats or Bearkats?

Both.

This year's Shootout has two teams with the same nickname, save for one letter.

If you're talking about Binghamton University, it's Bearscats with a C. If you're talking about Sam Houston State, it's Bearkats with a K.