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PORTALES — The Eastern New Mexico men’s and women’s basketball teams are headed for the 18th hole of their regular season, they’re in the final week.
“It’s been — as I’m sure every coach says — kind of a blur,” Eastern women’s head coach Josh Prock said. “It seems like yesterday we were hosting our first tournament and now the regular season’s almost over.”
How each team plays this week could say a lot about how they’ll play in the Lone Star Conference tournament. Each wants to playing winning basketball, but more importantly wants to play good, sharp basketball, which usually takes care of the winning part.
“I think at this time of year our big goal is we just want to keep evolving,” ENMU men’s head coach Tres Segler said. “At this time of year it’s a battle every day, but we’re doing it.”
Each team played nationally-ranked West Texas A&M teams on Tuesday night and each now has one regular-season game left, with the men set for a showdown against Division I Grand Canyon on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in Phoenix and the women scheduled to play LSC foe Texas Woman’s in Denton, Texas, on Saturday at 1 p.m.
Division I test
The Eastern men’s team went into Tuesday night’s game at West Texas A&M coming off a 70-68 win Saturday at Tarleton State, the program’s first victory in Stephenville since 1996.
“That was a crazy victory for us,” Segler said. “It’s always hard to play there, it’s a hard gym to win in. I think it just speaks mentally about the guys to be able to go into a gym like that and win.”
They’d like to have another ‘crazy victory’ Wednesday night against Grand Canyon, even though it’s listed on their schedule as an exhibition game.
“I think they count it as regular season,” Segler said. “And these Division I games are really important.”
Segler noted that last year after his four seniors were able to showcase their talents against a Division I opponent, they all received pro contract offers to play overseas.
“A lot of these agents want to see these guys play at a high level of competition. ... They want to see that our guys are capable of being professionals,” Segler said.
For some players, it’s redemption time.
“A lot of these guys got Division I offers,” Segler said, “and for whatever reason — whether it didn’t work out or they didn’t get the offer they wanted — they came to play in Portales for Eastern. For them it’s a little bit of validation, showing that they can hang in Division I. For our guys it’s a great chance to prove and say, ‘See, I do belong.’”
And then there’s the matter of matching wits against Grand Canyon head coach Dan Majerle. As a player, Majerle competed on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team in Seoul, South Korea — the last U.S. men’s basketball team to consist entirely of amateurs — and won a gold medal. And during his subsequent 14-year NBA career, Majerle was named an All-Star three times.
Wednesday night, Segler will have the honor and challenge of coaching against ‘Thunder Dan.’
“For sure, man. He was in my era of the NBA with Michael Jordan,” Segler said. “He was a guy that I looked up to. I met Coach Majerle a couple of times on the road. ... There will definitely be a shock factor for me to look across at him.”
The question will be how Majerle and Grand Canyon approach the Greyhounds. Will they treat it like an exhibition or like a game they’re going all out to win?
“You never know how a Division I team is going to look at the game,” Segler said. “Sometime it’s a way for them to get their bench some minutes. ... With them being really tough and playing really well right now we just need to do our best and go into that game and compete. I want to give them a good look to prepare them to go into their next game.”
Aside from Division I players and a coach who’s an NBA veteran, the Hounds will have to contend with The Havoc, Grand Canyon’s student section.
“It’s supposed to be a great environment,” Segler said. “And Dan Majerle being an ex-NBA player, he’s got them pretty stirred up.”
But Segler thinks his team is ready. Past the injury problems that beset them earlier this season, the Greyhounds are primed to give Grand Canyon a Division I-caliber matchup.
“Our depth right now has been real good to us,” Segler said. “We’ve got a lot of guys playing, a lot of guys scoring. It seems like every game another guy steps up. ... I think right now that’s making us dangerous and I think right now if you can be dangerous and little bit slippery, you can win some games in the postseason.”
Wrapping up
By the end of this week, Prock hopes the Eastern women’s team is on a roll, playing well as the LSC tournament looms.
Last week ended with consecutive losses at Texas A&M-Commerce (62-55) and Tarleton State (80-75). But Prock didn’t think that was an especially terrible stretch for the Hounds.
“I thought we played well last week,” he said. “We just played two really good teams on the road.”
Tuesday night’s game against West Texas A&M was also on the road. Saturday’s game will be in Denton, Texas. But the latter game will be a team struggling a bit more than the three previous contests. Texas Woman’s heads into Thursday’s home game against West Texas A&M with a 10-16 overall record, 7-11 in the LSC.
Still, Prock thinks they should be good preparation for the tournament when Eastern visits them on Saturday.
“Every team in each conference has its own unique style,” Prock said. “One thing we’ll see from every team in the Lone Star, you see teams that are pretty skilled offensively. You’ve got kids that can shoot well from the perimeter, so we’ve got to be able to guard the three-point line and be able to be better with our defensive intensity so we can be ready to go into the postseason.”
He thinks his players are progressing the way he would like at this point in the season, thinks they may be heading into the postseason with momentum, win or lose.
“I think we’re playing pretty well,” Prock said, “and we’ve gotten better each week. The kids that we were counting on are playing at a high level right now and their team morale and their focus is as good as it’s been all year.”