Game Notes
The Kentucky Wesleyan basketball team has a stretch of four straight home games upcoming before a road contest at Salem International to close out the month.
Following two hard-fought road wins over Cedarville and Central State, KWC's record sits at 9-6 overall and 4-0 in Great Midwest Athletic Conference play.
hey were the first road games of the season and took some grit and toughness to pull out. Those sorts of wins can do wonders for a team's mentality, and that's something coach Happy Osborne said has been a spark as the team prepares for the home stand, starting first with a 7:30 p.m. game against Davis & Elkins Thursday night at the Sportscenter.
"In practices, we've been more upbeat," Osborne said. "Not that we weren't before, but that's because of confidence, maybe. People have to understand that you can beat someone at your place, but it's a different game on the road. Just by nature of the beast, being conference games, when you say that word things are a lot tighter."
If KWC is able to get past Davis & Elkins (8-5, 1-1) Thursday and Alderson Broaddus (8-4, 2-0) on Saturday, the Panthers would head into next week as the only unbeaten team in conference play.
Their first task is a Davis & Elkins team that Osborne said has improved a great deal since playing in the KWC All-American Club Classic to begin the season, where both teams earned wins over Quincy.
While Osborne is pleased to be back home, he knows he can't let his team's confidence cloud their focus for the Senators, who boast three players who average in double figures and average 79.8 points per game, close to KWC's clip of 82.3 points per game.
"We're going to have guard (man-to-man) and we're going to have to guard ball screens like crazy," he said. "They're quick, athletic. Like us, they don't have 6-8, 265-pound (post players). They're more leaner, those kind of guys. They're only giving up 40 percent (shooting) — that's a nice number. They're scoring 50 percent. Those two numbers right there say a lot."
One big thing Osborne saw in his team's latest road trip — and something he hopes will continue the rest of the season — was that the Panthers played to win late in games rather than getting tight. The latter was a characteristic of the team earlier in the season, he said.
He said his team is at a point now where it has to collectively believe, "I've put too much into this and I refuse to lose."
"The more you put into something, the harder it is to give it up," he said. "I think we've practiced pretty hard."
He stressed that improvement is a year-long process, and noted that some of his more successful teams have improved the most in the few days leading up to the postseason.
All he wants is to continue seeing day-to-day improvement, adding that if his team does that, the rest will take care of itself.
"We've just got to keep improving," he said. "We've got a chance right here – we play at home for three weeks and then if you look at our schedule after that, we're on the road. We've got two more home games after this (home stand). We've got to keep improving because the schedule just makes it to where you have to."
