NAMPA, Idaho – It's not often a college basketball coach scouts an intramurals game.

But Northwest Nazarene women's coach Steve Steele was in need of players, so he headed to the gym to watch students play.

No, he wasn't looking for players to fill out his roster. Rather he was trying to find a group of guys to form a practice squad to help his team.

"Before I even got the job, I knew this was something I wanted to do," he said. "Most of them played together in high school, so I don't have to coach them. I just tell them to run this press or this zone defense or we show them plays quickly and they run them. It has been great."

The group of six students – Jared Stensgaard, Justin Higgins, Trent Emerson, Caleb Harper, Jonathan Shields and Nate Lundberg, who graduated last year – attend a practice or so a week to give the Nighthawks the chance to play against different competition.

"It's really helpful to play against people who are bigger and faster than you," NNU senior Ellie Logan said. "It's not super competitive because you want to keep it friendly, but they try to make us better."

Stensgaard, Higgins and Emerson played varsity basketball together at Skyview High in Nampa, while Kaleb Harper played at Columbia in Nampa and Shields played at Riverside Christian in Yakima, Wash.

Their past experience with varsity ball made their job as scout team players that much easier.

"It's been a blast," Higgins said. "It's something that I kind of look at as something I can do, not to necessarily give back, but just be involved further to create further community in athletics."

Higgins and Stensgaard are both on the school's golf team, while Emerson was the student government association's athletic liaison as a junior.

"My main focus out there is to be safe rather than competitive," Emerson said. "We just run the plays and stand in their place so they can take a break in practice."

Naturally, there is some trash talk between the players, though it is all in good fun. The boys even beat the Nighthawks in a scrimmage last season.

"We're GNAC champions right? Because they were and we beat them … I think we deserve an award or something," a laughing Stensgaard said. "It's fun, it's tiring, but it's all good. I love the practice with them and then seeing them in the game later and seeing what we've done to help them succeed is awesome."

The Nighthawks have won 47 games the last two seasons, including a conference titles, a national tournament berth with another likely this season.

"I think we've been able to help them a lot with our intensity in practice," Shields said. "I think we all love basketball and are really competitive. It's an opportunity to help the girls get better and get some extra playing time."

While the team can't provide the practice squad with any merchandise or anything of monetary value, the coaches do try to include them in team building activities and have them over to Steele's house periodically.

The group comes to nearly every home game and gets a kick out of seeing the plays they practiced help against the Nighthawks' opponents.

"We'll be watching and I'll see the plays we ran with them and they'll just blow them up with their awesome defense," Stensgaard said. "It feels really good."

With the remaining members of the squad graduating, Steele will have to hit up a few more intramural games in the coming months.

He'll be hard pressed, though, to find a group as dedicated as this one has been.

"We weren't really sure what we were getting into," Harper said. "I think it was just a good opportunity. They are a great team and it is a lot of fun to be out there with them."