W.F. West alum Brandon Rinta led the Central Washington Men’s Basketball team to a Northwest Athletic Conference Tournament Championship last week in Ellensburg, as the Wildcats topped Alaska Anchorage 78-69 in the title game.
Rinta has been the head coach at CWU, his alma mater, since 2018, and has since led the Wildcats to an 82-67 record in that span.
It’s the 34th conference title in CWU program history, and the Wildcats will now wait to find out their matchup in the first round of the Division II tournament. They’ll find out on Sunday at 8 p.m.
"This championship means so much," Rinta told wildcatsports.com. "The history of this program, the new facility we have is beautiful, but it is going to be a whole lot more beautiful when we get all those banners up, 33 conference championships, now 34," Rinta said. "I am just so proud of this team to be able to get this program to the place where we can have a game like last night and beat a team as good as Billings, turn right around and play a great Anchorage team. They have been consistent all year. We knew they weren't going to go away, and they made a run in the second half."
Rinta added, "In the game of basketball I believe you got to have the talent, but a close second is leadership and these two guys, Samaad Hector and Camron McNeil, as good of leaders as I have coached in 23 years and that is the main reason why we were able to do what we did today is because of these guys leadership."
Read more here: https://wildcatsports.com/news/2024/3/10/mens-basketball-wildcats-win-the-2024-gnac-championship.aspx
