The Carroll College men's basketball team plays its first round game in the Frontier Conference tournament today at 8 p.m. in the Maroon Activity Center in Butte against Montana Tech.

While the Saints have beaten the Orediggers by a combined 57 points this season, head coach Gary Turcott is not about to let his team overlook the first round opponent.

"This is the end of the year," Turcott said. "You play your non conference games and then your conference games and then your tournament games. At each level the level of concentration and intensity has to go up. It's important our players understand that they have to play harder and with more intensity in the tournament games."

The Saints have shown their focus with 12 straight wins that propelled them to a share of the regular season conference title, a 24-5 record (12-2 conference) and the 17th ranking in the national tournament.

Yet Turcott still sees his team as an underdog at the event. He points to co-champs Westminster (23-8, 12-2) and their lofty number nine ranking as the team to beat.

He calls Rocky Mountain (a team the Saints beat Saturday 67-59 while holding the Bears to 11 points in the final 17 minutes) a "dark horse". He frets over a Lewis Clark State team that beat Carroll 72-61 in the first road trip of the conference season and sees that those same Warriors lost to Tech last week. There's also fourth-seeded Western, the conference scoring machine that averaged 90.5 points against the Saints in two games this season.

So Turcott might be right, the Saints have plenty to worry about. Maybe they aren't the favorite. After all, they were picked to finish sixth in the conference in the preseason coaches' poll. After winning their sixth and seventh straight games in the current streak over then conference co-leaders Westminster and LCSC to take control of the league race, the Saints fell out of the NAIA top 25 because the regional rater (LCSC coach George Pfeifer) still had them ranked as the third team in the conference.

But we know better. We know that when Jeff Hays is scoring from all areas of the floor, when Kurt Paulson is finding open teammates with pinpoint passes, and when Andy Brown is running the floor like a man possessed, that the Saints are the clear tournament favorites.

We know that when Sinan Guler counters a turnover with a string of amazing plays on both ends of the floor at the precise time his team needs it most, or when Ross Gustafson hits what some might think of as an improbable turnaround jump shot on the baseline, that the team is ready to sweep the conference season and tournament titles.

We know that Travis Williams, Dallas Leslie and Derek Johnson have all led the team in scoring while coming off the bench this season and that each of them has provided much-needed spark in more than one victory.

We know the Saints should win because they knew how important each of their wins this season were. That the regional and national pollsters didn't think of them as a top tier team despite getting the Frontier's first win over a Big Sky team with a win at Idaho State in December.

"I felt and I think the players felt that we couldn't (afford to) lose," Turcott said. "With the way the ratings system was going, if we lost another game we were going to drop out of the (top 25) and wouldn't win the league. So we felt all the way through that we couldn't lose a game."

And they didn't, for seven straight weeks.

So the Saints SHOULD win this tournament. They should win because it's the way they can improve their chances at the national tournament and, after all, the Saints have done whatever they've had to do to be successful this season.

But we don't know they WILL win, and that's what we're about to find out when Westminster and the University of Great Falls (6-24, 3-11) tip off the tournament today at 2 p.m. Third seed LCSC (22-8, 10-4) and number six Northern (12-17, 3-11) play Thursday at 2 p.m. with Western (No. 4, 18-12, 7-7) and Rocky( No. 5, 18-12, 7-7) hitting the floor at 8 p.m.

Westminster or Great Falls will face off with LCSC or Northern Friday at 2 p.m. The winner of the Carroll, Tech game will take on the winner of the Western, Rocky game at 8 p.m.

That will determine the match up for the championship game Saturday at 8 p.m.