Eight is just a number for Andrew Davison and the rest of the Emporia State men’s basketball team.
Though the Hornets enter Friday’s game against No. 1-seeded Southwest Baptist as the eight seed in the MIAA Tournament, Davison said the players didn’t think of themselves as underdogs.
“I feel like we’re a tough draw. I would hope (Southwest Baptist) would think that,” the ESU senior said. “We’re going to give it our all.”
The rules are simple for ESU: To extend their season and make a second straight trip to the NCAA Tournament, the Hornets must win three games in three days at the MIAA Tournament to earn the league’s automatic berth to the NCAAs.
Otherwise, the careers of six seniors — Davison, Wes Book, Caleb Tegtmeier, Jordan Fithian, Marvin Lee and DeAndre Townsend — will come to an end this weekend.
“We’ve got six guys that don’t want to quit,” Davison said. “We’ve got six guys who don’t want to go home.”
An encouraging sign for ESU is that just a week ago, the Hornets showed they could hang with the top-seeded Bearcats. In fact, ESU led by one in the final minute before eventually falling 82-79 last Saturday at White Auditorium.
The Hornets were blown out, 93-70, in the teams’ first matchup on Jan. 5 in Bolivar, Mo.
“We definitely want another shot at them,” Lee said. “We’ll be in a different environment, a bigger stadium.”
ESU also has reason to be optimistic after seeing some success after changing its offensive philosophy over the last two games.
Before last week, the Hornets had primarily used a motion offense to get shots, with players moving constantly and setting screens without having set places to go to.
Last week, however, ESU implemented new set plays after receiving help in practice from a special guest coach: Andrew Davison’s father, Kent.
Kent Davison, who has been coaching for 35 years, was a head coach of the NBA D-League’s Fort Wayne Mad Ants until Feb. 5, when he stepped down to become the coach of the Qatar national team.
“I’ve always wanted to play for my dad, and for him to come in and to help Coach (David) Moe with some sets ... it was fun,” Andrew Davison said. “It was fun to have my dad at practice and see how he works like that. I’ve always been to practices, but I’ve never been a part of them.”
The new offense seemed to be effective as well. The Hornets made 30 of 64 shots (47 percent) in Saturday’s game against SBU.
ESU also used a limited number of the sets in its 84-72 victory against Truman on Feb. 27.
“For three, four, five, six games in a row, we were getting blown out, and now we’re playing with the best team in the conference,” Davison said. “We lost by three, but we’re there.”
Added Lee: “Everybody loved the plays. As you could tell, they were working well.”
One big question that remains for ESU is the status of Book.
The senior re-aggravated a foot injury against SBU on Saturday, and he had an MRI done on Tuesday, though the results were not immediately available.
One of ESU’s biggest challenges will be going against SBU’s 6-foot-10 forward Matthew Rogers, who scored 26 points and had 11 rebounds against ESU on Saturday.
Teammate Jim Grabowski — who was selected first-team All-MIAA along with Rogers — added 14 points on 3-for-6 shooting from the outside.