The Clan are getting used to this whole playing shorthanded thing, and despite recording their first conference victory of the season last weekend, it’s not getting any easier. Javari Williams, who was the leading GNAC scorer, and Matt Ravio, the team’s top point guard, are lost for the season because of academic struggles. To compound their woes, the team’s top rebounder Ibrahim Appiah suffered a knee injury that’ll keep him out for at least three weeks. For those keeping track, that leaves the Clan with seven athletes who can play. Considering five take the floor at any given time, that quite literally leaves the team with little breathing room.
SFU fell 88–81 to Northwest Nazarene on Thursday, but the score is relatively generous given how the Clan played. The team was down 17 points at the half, and did manage to claw their way back to respectability before the final buzzer blew. The team’s fatigue was easy to see throughout, even with the late game comeback. But, the Clan know that a shortened bench is no reason to pack it in, and they’ll know they’ll have to make do with what they have.
“We can’t make excuses,” said SFU head coach James Blake. “Even with seven guys we should’ve done a better job.
“We talked about coming out with energy and enthusiasm . . . we had a game plan that we didn’t really follow.”
It’s tough to maintain a game plan when the lineup is constantly shrinking, so one would expect a player or two to step up. Justin Brown has since taken over the team lead in scoring and has moved into ninth in league scoring. And while Blake says he doesn’t look to one particular player to pull through for the team, it’s clear Brown has done that himself. Blake calls him “a little pinball”, bouncing around all over the court, but his physicality almost cost him — and the team — as he hobbled off on a sore leg to end the first half against NNU.
Had he not returned the situation for the Clan would’ve been, in some twisted way, borderline comical. Fortunately, he did return, and brought the team back within seven points by the game’s end. It’s that kind of drive that’ll keep the team going.
And, with the depleted lineup, a few other members of the Clan are getting ample playing time when they normally wouldn’t. Nickolay Georgiev found the floor more often than he likely would’ve been expecting at this point and the season, and the increased playing time for Jordan Sergent is paying dividends.
A junior college transfer, Sergent has been on fire of late, and along with Brown, has been a main part of the Clan’s engine.
“I’ve found it takes [junior college tanfers] a while to adjust,” said Blake, “but you’ll see him excel the next 10 games, and he’ll be a force his senior year.”
Talk about turning lemons into lemonade. The Clan’s season, with all the injuries and academic ineligibilities, will not go as planned — that much is all but certain at this point. But the silver lining is that players who would’ve been off-the-bench guys are being given the opportunity to lead and star for their team. Win or lose, the team will be closer, and better off for all the adversity they’ve faced this year.
“We’ve had three ACL tears, an MCL tear, a cyst on the brain, ulcers . . . we’ve had everything,” said Blake. “That’s the way it is sometimes. You talk about being a good team with seven guys, imagine what we’d be with nine or 10.
“We’ve got to create a team game with whoever we’ve got, and we will.”
