Game Notes
Kentucky Wesleyan coach Todd Lee held a team meeting on Monday that lasted more than an hour.
Part of it was to watch film, but it was mostly a chance for the team to recalibrate and have a heart-to-heart talk about why the team is struggling.
The No. 23 Panthers (15-4, 7-4 Great Lakes Valley Conference) has dropped four of its last five games after starting the season 14-0 and have dropped all the way from No. 3 in the Top 25 to barely staying in it.
With a young team with many new faces, Lee said it was important to meet and lay out on the table what needed to be fixed.
"When they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, and they're reaping the rewards, it's a helpless feeling," Lee said of his team's 14-0 start. "You are trying to get them to do the right thing in practice and film and you're not getting the changes you need because you keep winning. I mean, it's a bad feeling.
"I saw (the struggles) coming. I told them weeks ago it was coming. But you keep winning, and I'm sure guys not being in the program were thinking, 'well I don't know what he's talking about. We're winning and everything's fine.' When you hit a certain point, whether it's in basketball or in life, you think, 'yeah, I've got to turn this around.'"
For KWC, that point is now.
The Panthers face Wisconsin-Parkside (14-5, 9-2 GLVC) at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Sportscenter with a chance to avenge a 60-59 loss that came on Jan. 26 at Parkside.
The Rangers come in as one of the hottest teams in the conference with four straight wins, including wins over No. 10 Southern Indiana, KWC, and No. 21 Indianapolis.
Parkside boasts the conference'e leading scorer, Jeremy Saffold, who averages 20.3 points per game. KWC held him to 11 points in the first meeting, but allowed Parkside's role players to do damage.
Lee said the recent stretch of losses has helped his team, especially the new players, learn just how tough the GLVC is.
Perhaps more importantly, he said the players seemed to be receptive of the message in Monday's meeting and are ready to make a push back toward the top of the GLVC standings.
"You can tell them what's going to happen…you can go through it on film," he said. "You can, some days, live it, you can feel the heartache, you can feel the hurt in everything and it just doesn't register. Now, we've felt some hurt and we'll see how we respond."
