IN SEARCH OF THE SILVER LINING

Rick Sarro Thursday, March 17, 2016 Comments Off on IN SEARCH OF THE SILVER LINING
IN SEARCH OF THE SILVER LINING

I want to say something good about McNeese Cowboys basketball.
I really do.
I’m sure that by the end of the column, I can bring light to more than one positive aspect about the program. Admittedly it won’t be easy.
From a sheer wins and losses standpoint, this has to be the most difficult and taxing of Dave Simmons’ 10 years as head coach.
The Cowboys finished their non-conference schedule at 2-8, but no one did a serious double take, considering that five of those losses were road games at then 21st-ranked LSU, former No. 1-ranked Oklahoma, Central Michigan and U.L.-Lafayette, along with a 105-60 blowout loss at Indiana, and then a closer than expected 67-53 loss at once No. 22-ranked UCLA.
The head-scratching came in Southland Conference play when McNeese lost games from every conceivable angle. Losses came from horrendous free throw shooting to a devil-may-care attitude on defense or turnovers that would make the Pillsbury Doughboy blush.
One consistent theme has been the inability of this team to hold hard-fought leads and close out games down the stretch. That latter category is littered with two one-bucket losses to Southeastern Louisiana and numerous wins in hand turned to defeats against Houston Baptist, Abilene Christian and UNO.
“We blew a lot of games,” admits junior point guard Jamaya Burr. “Home games, even some games on the road. The teams that were beating us, and what they were beating us by, aren’t that much better than us — no rebounding, not playing defense and giving up the easy stuff, like turning the ball over.”
Well, I will give it to Burr, as he summarized his team’s downfall in a nutshell — minus the missed free throws and still inexplicable inability to make lay-ups and tip-ins.
The season turned south during a critical stretch of the team’s Southland Conference slate beginning Jan. 30 and going through the recent Nicholls State game. The Cowboys went 2 and 7, which included a four-game losing skid that ended with the 71-69 overtime win over the Colonels at Burton Coliseum.
In the final home game of the season, McNeese was staring down SLC tournament elimination with yet another defeat. The win kept a small amount of wind in the team’s sails. But they still needed at least a split against Lamar and a road game at Central Arkansas to have a shot at the eight-team field that will convene for the SLC tourney March 9 in Katy, Texas.
“Our goal is to stretch it out,” Simmons said after the overtime win against Nicholls State. “Get to the conference tournament and take a big breath and play. Anything can happen. We tell these kids we are just as talented as most people in the league, but we have to bring it all together to win the game.”
Simmons had his master spin hat on, saying his team is as talented as many in the Southland. They simply are not. The Cowboys would not be near the bottom of the conference standings if they were as good as Sam Houston, Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word and Abilene Christian.
Their defensive and rebounding intensity is spotty at best. The turnovers come in bunches at the worst possible times. A celebration erupts on the bench if someone should happen to make two consecutive free throws. There is too much standing flat-footed in offensive sets, with players waiting for Burr to lose patience and take off in the lane or for someone to just jack up an indiscriminate three-pointer.
Burr points to defensive and rebounding lapses for his team’s troubles. Simmons agrees, and adds that the shooting touch and field goal percentage were slow to develop. “It took a little time for our freshmen to come on and help us in scoring,” says Simmons. “You hoped that your senior team would maintain, and instead of your freshmen coming in playing significant minutes, they (freshmen) should be coming in to role play. You always hope that your senior group would be your base and foundation.”
It wasn’t quite that way this season.
Senior forwards Craig McFerrin and Austin Lewis are averaging around 13 points and 12 rebounds between them. When they were focused and motivated, these two big bodies could muscle and bang the boards. But all too often they were outmuscled, outplayed, and simply disappeared.
McFerrin and Lewis were never going to be go-to guys like last year’s senior duo of Kevin Hardy and DeSharick Guidry.
Shaun Johnson and Matthew Moss, the team’s two other seniors, were solid role players off the bench, but were never expected to rise to the status of starters.
Add it up and you find the team didn’t have the strong senior foundation it was in dire need of.
This bunch has a body language and self-esteem problem as well. When things go bad, the shoulders slump, heads hang, faces pout, and what energy the team may have had drains away quickly. There isn’t enough proven leadership on the floor at any given time to thwart that; so leads are squandered, holes get deeper. This is the primary reason the Cowboys have yet to win a road game.
That’s right; it’s 0-13 away from home.
“Very frustrating,” says Simmons. “I tell our kids that the only people to solve our problems on the road and at home are us. No one else can help you. We have two more on the road, and we will attack them aggressively if we can. And I think it starts on the defensive end.”
Frustration has been the buzz word around this team this season. The players let their frustrations affect their play. Simmons and his assistants are unquestionably frustrated, as are the athletic administration and the fans, whose numbers at home games have dwindled.
The lowest of the low had to come during the recent four-game losing streak with the 10-point loss at Northwestern State, which at the time was near the bottom of the standings with McNeese. Then came the blown lead and eventual overtime loss to Southeastern at home. And then there was the no-show game at Burton during which the Cowboys allowed Tic Price’s Lamar boys to run them out of the gym for the Cardinals’ first win in Lake Charles since 1986.
There were some teaching moments this season, but few learnings have stuck.
Simmons reminds me these are “good kids” — that I don’t doubt — who are “still 18- and 19-year-old kids trying to learn.”
That forces the question of whether Simmons is teaching them well enough and pushing the right buttons in practice and during games. Attendance has been stagnant for years now. The university will soon break ground on a new on-campus basketball arena that many feel will solve the problems of the low gate, non-existent student interest, and negative recruiting and program perceptions.
If Simmons is feeling some heat, he isn’t letting on. If the veteran coach has learned one thing in his nearly 40 years of playing and coaching basketball it is that he shouldn’t listen to the criticism or let it concern him.
“I can’t worry about what the newspapers or what you in the media say. All I can do is do my job to the best of my ability. And that’s how I have always looked at it as a player, as a head coach and assistant coach. It’s a part of this life.”
Now here come the positive points I promised earlier.
Simmons was forced to lean on freshmen guards Jarren Greenwood and James Harvey, whose transition to the college game had some growing pains. But they eventually proved themselves to be consistent starters.
Harvey is averaging close to 14 points per game and has had some hot streaks beyond the three-point arc. In fact, his three 20-point games this season are the most a true freshman has had in the last 18 years.
Harvey’s rookie running mate Greenwood averages 12 points. He buried a last-second three-pointer to force an overtime period in the recent win over Nicholls State.
The 6-foot, 7-inch sophomore forward Stephen Ugochukwu is developing into a reliable defender and rebounder. While 6-foot, 7-inch freshman forward Adrian Brown has seen scant minutes, Simmons has high hopes for the Houston native.
As a group, these freshmen and sophomores, along with the highly touted recruiting class coming in, are the future of this program, according to the 10th-year head coach.
“I like what we have in place. I like what we added early (in the early signing period for incoming recruits) and I really like what we have coming back. Our guards, the 2s and 3s, can really shoot the basketball. With the freshman and sophomore class right now, we have a championship-caliber team. They have gone through some testing wars and the only thing you can do is keep looking up.”
It’s been one of those seasons that seems to repeat itself far too often for the Cowboys. In all fairness, there was success between 2010 and 2013, when the Cowboys went 52-45. The apex came in 2011, with a regular season championship and a 21-12 record.
Over the last three full seasons the W/L ledger reads 32 and 55. Throw in this season, when McNeese is struggling to reach the 10-win mark, and one might think it’s a program going nowhere fast.
That’s not the view of the always optimistic Simmons.
“These kids are resilient. When you are losing but getting better [that’s encouraging]. I see the work — every day they come in and work hard. Sometimes it doesn’t show in the wins and losses column, but I see them improving every day. We are playing 35 minutes, but we are just not closing games.”
Those five missing minutes have put this team in the position it’s in now — the bottom half of a conference with only five teams sporting winning records. But as of press time, the Cowboys still have a fighting chance for a tournament berth.
I guess some of Simmons’ optimism rubbed off on me.

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