Back to the basics

Team's success hinges on its ability to close out games

November 20, 2006 —

by Brandon Kish

From left to right: senior Sydney McDaniel, junior Chris Johnston, senior Martell Summers, and junior Mike Zuiderveen are part of a returning nucleus for the men's team. A preseason coaches poll has the Cardinals ranked at fifth in the GLIAC North Division.

by Brandon Kish

Sophomore Kevin Thornton tallied 11 points and five boards in 18 minutes in a 81-75 victory over Central State on Saturday.

by Brandon Kish

Senior Martell Summers during Saturday's game.

Jamie Matthews has the keys for his team's success whittled down to three.

"You gotta do three things," the Cardinals' coach says. "Take care of the ball, rebound, and defend."

As simple as that may sound, it's important to note Matthews is referring to how his team plays in the last five minutes of games.

Of the Cardinals' 14 conference losses last year, six were by five points or less. In two other games, SVSU found itself within five in the last five minutes. The Cardinals went 9-18 and 4-14 in the GLIAC a year ago, but Matthews says the team simply could not close out a game.

"The difference between a 9-18 team and a 18-9 team is probably winning your share of those five-minute games," he says. "Let's be honest, somebody has to go and make a play. It's not going to be from an offensive set. And, hopefully, we'll be able to figure out in the next couple of weeks who's going to be able to make plays for us."

SVSU returns seven players from that team, and of those, two are part of seven freshmen and sophomores playing for Matthews this year.

"We're still very young, believe it or not," he says. "But it's nice to have returners back and some things in place."

Senior guards Martell Summers and Sydney McDaniel will lead a nucleus that also includes juniors Chris Johnston and Mike Zuiderveen, sophomores Luke Laser and Kevin Thornton, and senior Kyle Sweger, who saw just 37 minutes of action a year ago.

"I am excited to have a nucleus returning," Matthews says. "It makes practice a lot better. I feel we are further ahead in the game."

Last year's squad had just one senior, meaning plenty of young players saw action.

"I have no problem playing young kids and first year guys in the program," Matthews says. "Your first year shouldn't be your best year, and I think Chris Johnston can attribute to that."

Johnston averaged a team-high 12.1 points and 4.4 rebounds per game last year, and is continuing to improve, Matthews says.

"Chris was off to a very shaky start last year, and became one of the better players in the league, I thought, in the last month," he says.

As a sophomore, Johnston was as close of a go-to guy as the Cardinals had. But he was inconsistent in the role, which compounded the team's inability to win at the end.

But Matthews says that as a junior, Johnston must improve on his game.

"For our basketball team to have a successful year, Chris Johnston has to play well," Matthews says. "He has to be a very competitive rebounder and has to get to the foul line for us, and be a good team defender. He's got to do it; if that requires him to change his personality a little bit, then he needs to."

Johnston has been at SVSU as long as McDaniel. Matthews is relying on those two, along with Summers and Zuiderveen, to set the tone for the team.

"I think they'll be able to bring in practice an expectation of how hard you have to play," he says. "They kind of have a feel and understanding of what we want done on the basketball floor."

The upperclassmen are joined by junior Steve Banks, a transfer from Grand Rapids Community College. His class standing, Matthews says, does not mean as much as it does for a player such as Zuiderveen, who has a year at SVSU underneath his belt.

"In college basketball, when they are in their first year in your program, they're all freshmen," Matthews says. "He's having to learn a new way of playing. There are some things that are important to me that weren't important to his junior college coach, and there were some things that were important to his coach that aren't necessarily important to me."

Banks joins two other sophomore transfers that will be seeing significant playing time, Lawrence Ross and Dorian Pierce. Ross saw action in just 12 games at the University of Miami-Ohio a year ago, while Pierce played in nine games for the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

"They bring athleticism and the ability to make plays," Matthews says.

Additionally, freshmen Derick Hobbs, Adam Gries, and Adrian Taylor, out of Christchurch, New Zealand will be seeing action this season.

"Gries is making strides," Matthews says. "Hobbs has shot the ball very well from the perimeter so far."

Taylor, meanwhile, is a unique case. Matthews says he came to SVSU after a coaching friend from assistant coach Scott Woods' alma mater arranged contact between the two sides.

"He came to visit last spring, and we watched quite a bit of tape on him," Matthews says. "We're very glad to have him."

Taylor should not have problems adjusting to college ball in the U.S., either.

"He has a great mix," Matthews says. "He can be a front-line guy, shoot it from the arc, and is big and strong enough to guard an opposing team's four man."

One problem facing this young team, though, is the beginning of its schedule.

After Saturday's 81-75 home win over Central State, the Cardinals play six of their next seven games on the road, including their first five GLIAC games.

"I would apologize to the student body if I did it, but it comes out of the league office," Matthews says. "We open with four games on the road against, on paper, the best four teams in our (division) of the conference."

SVSU travels to Hillsdale for a non-conference game on Saturday, then go to the west side of the state for matchups against Grand Valley State on Thursday, Nov. 30, and Ferris State on Saturday, Dec. 2. The Cardinals go up north the next weekend, playing at Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech.

Each of those teams were selected over the Cardinals in the coaches' preseason poll, which has SVSU at fifth.

The schedule isn't all bad news, though.

"The good thing is that we're at home late," Matthews says. "It's a great opportunity if you have the ability to get a couple early on-the-road wins under your belt."

While Matthews says to "throw out" those preseason polls, a fifth-place finish in the GLIAC's North Division would be exactly where the Cardinals were a year ago. And considering Matthews feels his team is making significant strides, fifth place would not be satisfying.

But he comes back to the team's Achilles' heel from a year ago.

"Between the first half of the year and the second half, we closed the gap on everybody we played," he says. "We played the top teams in our league very close late in the year; we could get a game to five minutes (left), then we couldn't figure out how to win."

Matthews is addressing that problem, but says it cannot be solved this early in the season.

"For this basketball team to be good and win close games, we're gonna have to find two or three guys we can rely on inside the three or four-minute mark," he says. "And I don't know who that is; I don't think many college basketball teams do. There may be one or two teams in the league that know how they're going to make their plays late in the game."

He does know, however, the problem can be solved.

"We're bigger, stronger, more athletic, smarter, tougher," he says. "Now we have to figure out an identity, and that's very hard to do in three or four weeks. And when I speak to an identity, we need to be able to find a couple guys who will refuse to lose and make winning plays late in the game.”