Men’s basketball team prepares to clinch more tight games

November 2, 2009 —

From a numbers standpoint, finishing a season 9-17 seems far from successful.

Men’s basketball head coach Frankie Smith doesn’t necessarily buy into those numbers.

“We had a number of close losses last season,” Smith said. “If we would have been able to pull a few of those ones out at the end, we would have been in the GLIAC tournament.”

Some of the losses that Smith was referencing were the 68-66 loss to Hillsdale, 74-70 to Ashland, and a 79-75 setback to Indianapolis. In close games such as those, free throws can be the difference between winning and losing. In most cases for the Cardinals, they seemed to be something that held them back.

“Something as simple as making freethrows, or hustling to lose balls, the little things like that all help determine who comes out on top,” Smith said. “Too many times last year, we found ourselves on the wrong end of a close game.”

While it will be difficult to replace the loss of leading scorer Dante Williams, Smith is confident that the team has enough weapons, in particular senior guard Avery Stephenson, to be able to put up points.

“Avery is going to have a big year for us,” Smith said. “It’s tough to lose someone like Dante who was not only a great player, but someone who pushed guys to try their hardest. It is going to be hard to replace Dante, although Avery is the type of player that has enough talent to play at an All-American type level.”

In the preseason coach’s poll, the Cardinals were selected to finish in fifth in the GLIAC North Division, although Smith isn’t putting much stock into that.

“Before the poll came out, I told the guys I really have no idea where we’re going to be placed,” Smith said. “The great thing about that is that I didn’t care. All that matters is where you end up at the end of the season.”

In each of the last two seasons, the Cardinals have finished one game short of qualifying for the GLIAC tournament. While Smith would be quick to disagree with anyone who says the team has been a failure the last couple of seasons, the lack of wins is something that Smith isn’t used to.

Before coming to SVSU, Smith was an assistant coach at Miami University where the Redhawks won a regular season Mid American Conference (MAC) championship as well as a MAC tournament championship. Before that, he was a high school coach in West Virginia where he compiled a record of 125-35. Needless to say, he has experienced success everywhere he has coached.

“I’ve been blessed with having a lot of talent on my teams,” Smith said. “No matter where I’m at, I’ve always had a great group of players. I’m really excited about this team because it reflects me. My first season here, I was playing with someone else’s players. Now I can say these are all my guys.”

Something that Smith hopes the Cardinals can do this season is get off to a fast start. Last season, they lost their first five games, putting them at a disadvantage early on. The Cards’ finished last season winning four of their last six games, which has Smith hoping the Cardinals can carry that momentum into this season.

“You never want to have long losing streaks, especially like we did at the beginning of last season,” Smith said. “We tasted success at the end of the season and hopefully we can put ourselves in better position for later on in the season by winning early.”

In addition to Stephenson, the Cardinals also have two other starters returning in senior forward Adam Gries and sophomore guard Greg Foster. The experience the team has is something Smith believes will help it through the season.

“Greg came in and played a lot of minutes as a freshman,” Smith said. “This is the most experienced team I’ve had since being here, and I’m excited about that. Everyone knows what to expect now.”