Last weekend, the gym at North Idaho College was full of excitement as host of the Region 18 men's and women's basketball tournament.

This week, it was a lot different.

Welcome to life in "limbo land" for the Cardinal teams, who are both waiting to see if they will receive at-large bids to nationals.

FOR THE NIC women's basketball team, which is 28-4 and ranked 12th in the latest NJCAA poll, the Cardinals have been in the top 10 most of the season - as well as ranked No. 1 for the month of December.

NIC was ranked sixth last week, before losing 57-55 to the College of Southern Idaho in the Region 18 championship game last Saturday in Coeur d'Alene.

"It's kind of like limbo land right now," NIC women's basketball coach Chris Carlson said. "It started right after the (Region 18 championship) game against CSI. We were sitting in the locker room looking at each other trying to figure out what's next. Normally, there's people screaming and crying, but this time, we didn't know what to do. We're still looking around at each other, but the good thing was we made a case for ourselves all year long with the high level of play. Right now, I don't feel bad losing to a team like CSI with young kids stepping up. So what if they lost 11 games - that's great and refreshing that Randy (Rogers) played those kids and got better. We've been through that poll and procedures and feel we've done the work to get there (to nationals) also."

After a 77-72 loss to Snow College in a semifinal game last Friday, the North Idaho College men's basketball team has tried to approach this week like any other week this season.

"It's every bit as tense as it's been the last couple of months," NIC men's coach Jared Phay said. "What we did was conditioned and lifted (weights) like we'd normally do after the conference tournament. If we get selected, we’ll have a full week of practices to get ready. I didn’t think we’d have a good week of practices, so it was better to stay in shape.”

The NIC men dropped from 10th to 19th in this week’s poll.

“Part of our argument is that it was just us (Region 18) and Region 1 (Arizona) at a regional tournament last week,” Phay said. “What I hope will happen is that the selection committee will look at the last two weeks and do their own poll on Sunday. We definitely shouldn’t have fallen from the top 10 because Snow had been ranked in the top 25 earlier this year.”

If you’re wondering how a team can still practice when its season might already be over, teams that don’t qualify for nationals can still practice up until the final day of the national tournament, Phay said.

Carlson also credits an early regional tournament for the Cardinals’ slide from sixth in last week’s poll to 12th.

“Everyone else is playing today (Friday) and Saturday,” Carlson said. “There’s four teams in the top 13 that are going to lose either today or tomorrow, but are they going to drop six spots too?”

The NJCAA men’s tournament is in Hutchinson, Kan., and the women’s tournament is in Salina, Kan. Both tourneys are March 18-23.

BOTH TEAMS are relying on NIC athletic director Al Williams (men) and Salt Lake Community College athletic director Norma Carr (women), who are on the selection committees for the tournament.

“Our best advocate right now is Norma Carr,” Carlson said. “We share any thoughts and things we notice with Big Al (Williams) and Norma. I’m sure Norma knows the process and she’ll go to bat for the region.”

NIC won in its last appearance at nationals in 2011. The NIC men haven’t advanced to nationals since 1997.

For the NIC men to advance, the Cardinals will need a win tonight by No. 5 Salt Lake at No. 10 Central Arizona in a winner-to-nationals game — as well as help from some other schools across the nation.

“We’re big Salt Lake fans tonight,” Phay said. “(No. 11) Howard College (Texas) will probably be a big one for us also. If they win, they’ll get an automatic berth.”

Phay said he thought two of the four at-large bids could go to the Florida and Kansas regions, leaving two bids open.

“There could be one upset,” Phay said. “But if Central Arizona loses to Salt Lake, we should get an at-large. If the committee really views strength of schedule, I think we’ve got a good chance. If they look at records, it would definitely hurt us — but are they going to encourage scheduling 15 junior varsity and All-Star teams or us and the women’s team trying to get our strength of schedule up?”

AS AN assistant women’s coach at Eastern Washington University from 2001 to 2004, Carlson said he saw the downside to not receiving a bid — albeit not his team.

“I did witness the Eastern volleyball team had an unbelievable season, but didn’t get a bid, so you see that stuff happen sometimes,” Carlson said. “We just hope those people that make those decisions research and check everything out and make the best decision they can.”

As far as finding out the decision — both Carlson and Phay will have to wait until Monday, when the at-large bids are announced by the NJCAA.

“I’ve been talking with a lot of different Division I coaches this week,” said Phay, who was a graduate assistant at Idaho for one season. “They just say now you know how we feel. At the end of the day, you just don’t know. It’s a committee that’s making a decision and like any other tournament, there’ll be some teams that got left out that should have been in. Either we’re done or in.”

Unlike their Division I counterparts, there won’t be a selection show on national television or experts breaking down the bracket after it’s announced.

The news will come on Monday afternoon either in a phone call or email.

“Al will know right away on the men’s,” Carlson said. “And I imagine Norma will let him know when she knows for the women’s. We’re well represented on both committees. We were laughing about going into the booster room and pulling up the website and waiting for an email and watching it. If we knew closer to the time, we’d probably do it. But we’ll probably be in practice when they announce it. We might be the first junior college to celebrate this — but it would be hilarious.”

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com.