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OGDEN — Weber State coach Randy Rahe is a tough and a successful guy.
He holds to some coaching philosophies that are to be respected and admired — he believes in his players; he takes blame for losses; he wants what’s best for the team; he believes in hard work.
Holding true to these maxims over the years has led to a remarkable time at Weber State, where he has led the Wildcats to two NCAA tournaments and several regular season conference titles. However, sometimes there is a combination of things — youth, inexperience, injuries — that works against a team, and the Wildcats are facing those obstacles, among others.
Fact — this is the youngest team Rahe has had in Ogden. Fact — there has been less NCAA experience on this team than any other team in Rahe’s tenure. Fact — the Wildcats lost their leading scorer, Jeremy Senglin, to a broken nose in a Thursday loss to Southern Utah.
All of the facts combined in a 61-54 loss to Northern Arizona Saturday, a loss that dropped the Wildcats to 5-8 in conference play.
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Weber State had another sluggish start, trailing 24-15 at halftime. However, they fought back to tie the game several times in the second half before Northern Arizona went on a run to close out the game.
Losing is tough, but Rahe saw positives in his young team hanging together throughout the game, in spite of the rough circumstances.
“I was extremely pleased with their effort, and how they hung in there and fought,” he said. “Being short-handed, and all of the things we’ve been going through, we gave ourselves a chance and we just couldn’t quite get over the hump.
“To me, that’s what a Weber State basketball team looks like, so now we’ve got some things to build on and get better as we go.”
With the loss, the Wildcats are in eighth place in the conference. The top-eight teams, when the regular season concludes, will head to the conference tournament, and Weber State has never missed a conference tourney under Rahe. In fact, the Wildcats have only missed the tournament three times in history.
If the Wildcats can be successful over their final five games of the season, which start Thursday with a trip to Montana State, forward Joel Bolomboy will have to be a factor. Bolomboy finished with 23 points and 17 rebounds — a career-high.
Rahe said Bolomboy’s response was impressive.
“I thought Joel had just a great, great mindset tonight,” he said. “I don’t think he went out there thinking I’ve got to go score 20 (points) and do all that. Joel just played the way he did, but he was very aggressive."
While there are questions about who exactly will make up for Senglin’s loss for the next month, Rahe said it’s a matter of everyone doing just a little bit more.
“What we talked about yesterday, when you’ve got to try to make up for a lot of points that (Senglin) scored, is we don’t have to have one guy get 15 points. We’ve got to get everybody just doing a little bit more. Everybody’s got to get three or four more points, and if we do it as a team, we’ll make up for it.”
