ELMHURST, Ill. - Top-five college basketball matchups are usually reserved for March, but basketball fans were treated to a pair of marquee matchups just two games into the conference season.

In Lawrence, Kansas, No. 1 Kansas and No. 2 Oklahoma enthralled the nation with a wild triple-overtime battle. In the end, Bill Self and his top-ranked, reigning conference champion Jayhawks held off Lon Krueger's upstart Sooners and stayed atop the Division I college basketball world.

Two days later, two teams from the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin, No. 1 Augustana (Ill.) and No. 5 Elmhurst, battled for a leg-up in one of the toughest conferences on the Division III landscape. Elmhurst rose to the challenge and completed the upset, handing the Vikings their first loss of the season in a 77-75 overtime thriller in front of a capacity crowd.

There are not a lot of similarities between Elmhurst and Oklahoma. Elmhurst plays in smaller gyms, does not offer scholarships, and does not have its game nationally televised, but much like Oklahoma, the Bluejays have their own top-level coaching staff.

Kruger and Elmhurst Head Coach John Baines both took over programs with sub-500 records and returned them to national prominence. Baines inherited a 6-19 Elmhurst team when he returned to campus in 2012. Three years later, the Bluejays made history by earning back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament for the first time and reaching a program-high national ranking of No. 2 in the D3hoops.com poll.

Baines has found a home at Elmhurst using his gift of connecting with players to turn the program around. Last April, the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association named Baines co-Division III Coach of the Year.

"My way of coaching and my personality fit better at the DIII level because I like the guys to have fun," says Baines, who thinks the higher levels bring added pressure and stress. "Why can't you work hard, win games, and enjoy it?"

Last year, it all came together for the Baines' squad in the first round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament. The Bluejays hit game-tying shots in the final seconds of regulation, the first overtime, and the second overtime before completing a 110-98 triple-overtime victory over No. 5 St. Norbert. Even though an exhausted Elmhurst squad lost the next day, the season surpassed all expectations.

When first looking up at the 6-7 Baines, his gray hair doesn't look like it belongs on the head of a man who, according to his Twitter account, got carded while wearing a hat at a Chicagoland Jewel-Osco last year. His vibrant face and practice-day attire of Nike athletic shoes, striped sweats, and an Elmhurst dri-fit t-shirt that shows off his biceps, give off an undeniable feeling that he, even in his late 30s, can ball with his 18-to-22-year-old players.

"He still gets buckets," his starting shooting guard and leading scorer Kyle Wuest admits after a tough practice.

He only jumps in with his players once or twice a season now because age has slowed him down. "I used to [play in practice] a lot and every year I got a little worse," Baines says with a chuckle. "In their minds I was a really good player, so if I get out there too much they'll think 'this guy sucks'."

Although his agility and his hair color has changed, age cannot take away his love of music, specifically karaoke.

Last year, before arguably the biggest game of the Bluejays' season, a February, 2015 matchup with conference-rival North Central, Baines brought speakers out to his team's morning walkthrough and started rapping.

"Being with the college guys keeps me fresh," says Baines. "We'll be dancing and I'll be singing karaoke before practice on Saturday and I think to myself, what other job do they pay me to sing Soulja Boy to a bunch of guys?"

His players go along with it, while his wife shakes her head.

"I just think it's hilarious," Ackerman says. "I feel like we can pick on him because he can just sit there and rap for four minutes straight with no expression on his face, while his wife tries to take the microphone away."

"I admire the fact that he doesn't care how he sounds and will sing his heart out," Baines' wife Emily says. "One of his best qualities is his ability to laugh at himself but, as his wife, I can only laugh so much. They say 'behind every good man is a woman rolling her eyes.' When he sings that's what I do."

With the karaoke complete and the game underway, Elmhurst trails by a point with one minute remaining and Ackerman is struggling on the court. He loses a rebound and then pulls up from 25 feet, right in front of his head coach, and misses everything. But Baines shows confidence in Ackerman's basketball skills just as he did in his own rapping ability.

"With some coaches, if you make one mistake you are going to yanked out of the game," says Ackerman, reflecting back. "He demands and expects a lot out of you, but he's going to give you a chance if you deserve it."

"He's great with building confidence," Ackerman's teammate Brandon Schwebke adds. "If anything, he's going to take you out for something effort-related."

Now trailing by three with 37 seconds to play, Baines sends Ackerman back on to the floor, trusting his player's ability. Ackerman responds with the play of the game. He fully extends to force a crucial steal, poking the ball to Schwebke. Two passes later, Ackerman receives the ball just a few feet from the site of his air ball. Even closer to his head coach this time, he fires the potential game tying three-pointer without hesitation. The shot drops and Elmhurst goes on to win in overtime.

But, as is typical for Baines, there are no Gatorade baths or dance parties in the locker room. He knows that the difference between winning and losing is razor thin.

"In that particular game, Ackerman made a three to force overtime and we beat North Central," Baines says reflecting on the win that essentially clinched the Bluejays' first NCAA Tournament birth since 2009. "He very easily could have missed that shot and we lose. Emotionally, the reactions are polar opposites, but it was just one shot."

This type of perspective has developed over his coaching career. As an assistant at Elmhurst from 2000-10, he was fiery.

"In his younger days, he was a more intense coach," says Elmhurst's current assistant coach Chris Martin, who played under Baines from 2003-06. "He's more thought out and mellow now. He does most of his thinking and working in his office before he goes down to the court."

In fact, Baines now prefers to only meet briefly after games, holding off from emotionally-charged reactions and saving his analysis for the week ahead.

"You're never as good or as bad as you think you are right after a game," says Baines recalling one of his former players who rolled with the highs and lows of winning and losing. "I once told Rob Strzemp 'it's easier to drive on flat roads than to ride a roller coaster.' I think that's one of the hardest parts of my job because we wrap up our self-worth in wins and losses."

When Baines arrives in his office on a Monday, having had a full day to reflect on Saturday's game, he thinks about where his team is physically, mentally, and emotionally before worrying about the next opponent. He'll often use a poem or simple metaphor to get his message across.

"The guys will say I'm a little corny," Baines says, searching through old game plans before eventually finding a particularly good one. "It doesn't have to be crazy smart, it just has to resonate with the players.

"Last year, we lost a couple of games and were playing soft. So, I [told the guys] we are playing like the nail and not the hammer. When we got in the bus to go Wheaton, I'd hung hammers all down the bus. The problem was, when I started driving, the hammers started swinging and I thought the guys were going to get hit."
No one was hurt and the idea stuck with the players.

"They ran with that for a couple of weeks," Baines says.

Martin usually arrives to his adjacent office a few hours after Baines and is impressed by the coach's work ethic.

"By the time I get in at nine, he's already watched film and thought through the game plan," Martin says. "Whether it's right or wrong, everybody buys in because he spent so much time working on it."

They buy in regardless of whether his methods are conventional or not. After one particularly tough loss last season, Baines decided not to hold practice. Instead, the players showed up with a circle of chairs set up at half court. "We had a 'kumbaya' session where we talked about our lives, what we want to improve on, and how we could change practice," Martin says. "Instead of working on defense, since we couldn't guard anyone that game, he just wanted [the coaches] to talk to the players, be there for them, and show how we can help."

This practice shows Baines' ability to recognize his team's needs.

"Coach Baines has an amazing way of gauging our emotions," says Wuest. "You don't always have to get right back into an intense practice to get refocused. That was just a great example of how diverse he is as a coach. He always keeps things interesting."

This is typical for Baines who usually checks in with his players once or twice every season. "Some coaches try to be the guy out in front leading the way," says Baines. "I prefer to be the guy behind. The team tells me where they want to go and I keep them motivated."
 
"It was reassuring to sit down, talk about all of our goals, and know that we can still reach them," Ackerman says, thinking about the turning point in the Bluejays' 2015 season. "We could still, in a sense, control our own destiny."

After the game, as with any other Elmhurst home game, the visiting squad quickly retreats to the locker room, while the Bluejays stay on the floor. The players walk down a stream of fans awaiting high fives and then create pods with their family and friends. This family time is a result of Baines' desire to think through the game before addressing his team, but has turned into a tradition all its own.

"I want to recognize our fans, especially parents who drive a long way to see their kids," says Baines.

It's especially important to the players. "I love it," says Ackerman, whose family travels five hours every Saturday to watch him play. "Baines gives us a lot of time and I appreciate that because he understands that it's not just about basketball. He knows that we are away from our families and they are taking the time to watch us play, so we need to appreciate them."

"This is the first team I've ever seen that does anything like that," says Schwebke, who transferred to Elmhurst in the fall of 2014. "I like it because I get to talk to my parents after the game. They aren't going to be able to watch me play basketball forever and it's special that, in uniform, we can talk to the family and friends who came to watch us play."

"It goes back to how Baines has a really good grasp on life," Wuest adds.

Baines' favorite part of coaching, just above rapping Soulja Boy, is trying to transfer that perspective to his players, a message that resonates at all levels of basketball.  

"I like being around the guys," Baines says. "I want to help them become the vision of who they want to be. And then we play some basketball."