Lions open regular season at PSU, Emporia: Men's Basketball
Jordan Larimore
Issue date: 11/20/09 Section: Sports
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The men began their season on Oct. 30 in an exhibition at Illinois in which they were bounced easily, 95-67.
In their second exhibition tune-up, the Lions hosted Livin' The Dream Nov. 14. In this game, Southern showed what Head Coach Robert Corn believes will be a strength of his team, offensive production.
"Offensively we've got guys who can have big games at any time," Corn said. "I don't think it's a situation where we rely on one guy to have to carry the load for us.
"I think we've got an opportunity to have a balanced team, where we've got three or four guys who maybe are capable of averaging in double-figures or getting double-figures on any particular night."
The Lions put 103 points on the board in the Livin' the Dream exhibition to split their preseason contests going into today and tomorrow's matchups.
Their second game of the Pitt State Classic will be against Haskell University tomorrow.
As the season begins, Corn is confident his team will be competitive.
"We have high expectations, we've got nine returning players who saw time last year, we've got four returning starters," he said. "We have Skyler Bowlin who was second team All-Conference returning.
"We have Jason Adams who was Freshman Of The Year last year in the league coming back, and then we have DaRell Crittendon and Mariun Price who started for us the whole year.
"And then we have Chris Scruggs and Keane Thomann who got a lot of playing time on the inside. So we've got a real good nucleus of guys coming back."
Despite their apparent depth and experience, the Lions come into the season ranked No. 7 in both preseason coaches' and media polls.
"There's always a surprise team, there's always a disappointing team," Corn said. "So I've never paid any attention to preseason, there's always a team.
"Two years ago we were picked last and we ended up third in the league and we were right there knockin' in the last week and a half of the season we were competing for the Conference Championship. The year we went 30-3 we were picked sixth, so I've never put a whole lot of stock in that."
As for his players, Corn says the ranking does nothing but provide desire to prove the polls wrong.
"That's motivation for them because they don't feel like they're the seventh-ranked team in the conference.
"So that's just a little more motivation to get out and compete a little harder," he said.
Southern's home slate will begin Tuesday against Central Bible, followed by the Freeman Sports/Chris Tucker Memorial Classic next weekend.
"I feel like we have an opportunity to have an exciting basketball team," Corn said. "We hope that the student body will come out and support us."
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