"Nunsensations!" (Westwego)
March 2, 2010
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March 4, 2010
Nicholls men’s basketball coach J.P. Piper said in November he knew the Colonels would struggle to replace their leading scorer Ryan Bathie and their inspirational leader Justin Payne, who both graduated following last season.
“Those two guys led our team and everyone else fell into place around their lead,” Piper said. “We have to find guys on this team who can have that impact in the locker room for this team.”
But with this season approximately two weeks from being completed and Nicholls still fighting to find the right formula for success, Piper’s Colonels are in a fight to keep their season alive and get into the Southland Conference Tournament, which begins March 10.
“It’s taken a lot longer than I thought it would,” Piper said. “But we’re getting comfortable and we’re trying to settle guys into our roles.”
The Colonels are currently 9-18 on the season and 5-9 in the conference.
The top eight teams get into the conference tournament and compete for the league’s one automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.
The Colonels are currently in a four-way tie for eighth place, which means the season’s final two games will be of utmost importance.
“We didn’t start off very well,” said junior forward Anatoly Bose. “But we know that our league is so competitive that all you have to do is make the conference tournament and you’re a threat, so that is our goal – to just get in and see if we can make waves from there.”
One of the reasons for the Colonels’ struggles this season has been a lack of offensive balance.
Nicholls was picked to finish first in the conference’s Eastern Division, but they have not been able to compliment Bose, who leads the team and averages nearly 21 points per game.
As a team, the Colonels only have four players who average eight or more points per game.
But that trend has changed in the back-half of the season as Nicholls had three scorers in double figures in the team’s Feb. 20 win against Texas State and four scorers in double figures in last Tuesday’s win against Central Arkansas.
“For us as a coaching staff, we’ve mentioned that for us to be efficient offensively, we’d rather have instead of two guys get 20, we’d rather have four guys score 10,” Piper said. “That makes you harder to guard, and it spreads the defense thinner.”
One of the team’s secondary scorers, sophomore Fred Hunter said taking pressure of Bose is something the team has been trying to do all season.
“We’re trying to play off him,” Hunter said. “He’s been playing great and we’re take some of the load off him.”
The Colonels will play Texas-Arlington tonight and Lamar on Saturday.
UT-Arlington is one of the top teams in the conference and will be one of the top seeds in the conference tournament, while Lamar is one of the teams tied with Nicholls, which might turn that game into a play-in game for the right to advance to Katy, Texas.
To take those steps and win down the stretch, sophomore forward Fred Hunter said the Colonels have to get back to the fundamentals of basketball – ball handling and defense.
“We can do some special things when we’re not turning over the basketball and playing solid defense,” Hunter said. “We have to just focus on doing that in each individual game and all of the conference tournament stuff will play out how we want it if we do that.”
Bose agreed and said having to grind to get to the conference tournament is not the ideal situation, but might help the team in the long haul.
“Preparing game-by-game and knowing that if we lose one, we’re going to be hurt, it might help us prepare,” Bose said. “Because if we do get into the conference tournament, that’s the mentality you have. Lose or go home.”
And although he has no way of knowing the final outcome, Bose said he is sure of one thing.
“We’re going to play hard,” he said. “Because anything can happen. We’d have just as good a chance as anyone else if we were to get in.”
Nicholls junior forward Anatoly Bose swoops to the lane for a layup during the team’s 79-62 win against New Orleans last season. Bose is one of the Colonels looking to push the team to the conference tournament this season. * File Photo / Tri-Parish Times
