ENMU men still seek momentum

PORTALES — There’s no way to sugar-coat a 1-7 record. 1-7 is unfortunately 1-7.

But the Eastern men’s basketball team still has hopes for this season, still thinks it’s building toward something better.

So these last two games of 2019, against University of Arkansas Fort Smith on Thursday (7:30 p.m.) and Oklahoma Christian (4 p.m.) on Saturday — both at Greyhound Stadium — can be looked upon as two ladder rungs, two chances for the Greyhounds to step up or down, the former they hope. These two games can potentially send them into the new year with momentum, which could be the start of a good early-winter run. A redefining run.

It’s a philosophy that ENMU head coach Tres Segler shares with Kentucky men’s coach John Calipari.

“I heard Calipari talk about winning game by game,” Segler said. “As the season progresses it’s more vertical. You just stack things on top of each other and hope for the end result. ... Vertically we’ve stacked things up and I think we have picked up. The truth is we’ve had some hard days. How do you find positives when we have five days before we can play again? We’ve found our positivity in this day, this moment, how do I take this shot. And I’m very blessed that our guys are doing that and in the end game are just really playing like it’s going to add up to something big.”

Getting to close out the calendar year at Greyhound Arena could help.

“Just having a few home games is going to feel good,” Segler said. “One of the big advantages there is we can play under own own roof.”

When last seen under that roof on Dec. 7, the Greyhounds were a making a game of it against Wayland Baptist University, then the country’s ninth-ranked team in NAIA. Eastern lost, but only 76-70 to that national powerhouse.

“No question our Wayland Baptist game didn’t go the way we wanted it to,” Segler said, “but it felt great to have the crowd at our back. The crowd was great … so that’s always a big thing.”

After a road swing last week during which the Hounds picked up their first win of the season by beating St. Mary’s of San Antonio before losing to St. Edward’s of Austin, they are looking back at the Wayland Baptist game, and to last month’s game at West Texas A&M, to help prepare for Arkansas Fort Smith.

“They run a motion offense; they’re going to try to play fast,” Segler said of UAFS. “It’s similar to what West Texas does, it’s similar to what Wayland Baptist does. It’s kind of an older basketball system. We were preparing in practice (Monday) how to stop their stuff and my guys remembered from playing West Texas and Wayland Baptist some of the strategic points.”

The fact that his players had remembered so much of what they had practiced earlier in the season was a sign to Segler that they are capable of taking those Calipari steps toward respectability and beyond.

“That takes a lot of pressure off me so we could go right to business,” Segler said. “It makes you feel good because the guys are paying attention. And more than that you feel like their basketball IQ is growing. It just really does a lot to make our preparation time more efficient. ... When guys are in that kind of phase we feel like we can take more leaps and bounds than we normally would. Any one of those details can be the big catalyst for the run we could make and for what we’re hoping to happen.”

Eastern, despite its struggles, actually comes into Thursday’s game on a smaller losing streak than UAFS. The Greyhounds have lost just one in a row, the St. Edward’s game, while Fort Smith (5-4) starts Thursday’s action on a three-game skid.

Still, Fort Smith will provide formidable competition for the Greyhounds, and Segler knows it.

“Good team, man, really good team,” Segler said. “They have a couple of really good players who are averaging a lot of points.”

Senior guard Brian Halums leads UAFS with a 23.1 scoring average, followed by junior guard Matthew Wilson with 17.4 points per game. Containing them could be among the keys to victory Thursday.

The most recent of Fort Smith’s losing streak was last Saturday against Oklahoma Christian (3-4, 2-1 Lone Star Conference), the team Eastern will play this Saturday.

The Eagles will try to make it two in a row on Thursday against West Texas A&M in Canyon, Texas before heading to Portales to face Eastern on Saturday.

Senior forward Dedrian Parmer Jr. leads Oklahoma Christian in scoring (17.9 per game), rebounding (7.3 per game), and three-point field-goal percentage (57).

Overall, the Eagles will be more challenging competition for Eastern, especially on the defensive end.

“We look for those guys to be really tough and physical,” Segler said. “They’re going to run some zone. Zones can be tricky; if you’re not shooting the ball well it can stall you out.”

Though facing a tough task, the Greyhounds are hoping that distraction-free, they can bag these two victories and head into 2020 having won three of their last four.

“Our last week of road games, that was our finals week, man. So we had a lot of distractions,” Segler said. “And the guys, rightfully so, were worried about passing their classes and their final exams. Now that school is behind us, we can focus on basketball. I told our guys this is what it feels like to be a pro — you come to work, you practice.”