The Sam Houston State women’s basketball team is coming down the final stretch of the regular season. The Bearkats have a three game home stand coming up, where they will have an opportunity to make up some ground and possibly get into the conference tournament.
Despite the poor start to the season, the Bearkats still have an outside shot at making the Southland Conference tournament.
At 2-12 in conference play, the Bearkats are currently three games back of eighth place in the SLC. If the Bearkats were to win at least two of three games of the final home stand, then they could enter their final game of the regular season against Stephen F. Austin with a win-and-in scenario.
However, the Bearkats are not very concerned with the conference tournament possibility because making the conference tournament is out of their control. They can only worry about things they can control, and the Bearkats are aware of that.
“The message is going to be every day go out and play your best game,” head coach Welch-Nichols said. “We can’t worry about what tomorrow is going to bring. We have to take care of today.”
The Bearkats goals are still what they have been all season, to win the next game.
The team does not look ahead to future games; they only focus on the task at hand. Every team has their own approach to the game, and the Bearkats have embraced their everyday grind. At the beginning of the season coach Welch-Nichols said the motto was “Anchor Down, Katy Bound”, and in order to get to Katy for the conference tournament, the Bearkats have to anchor down in their last four games.
A major talking point for the Bearkats is their young team, and how to balance their possible goals for the future, with their goals in the present. The Bearkats are an extremely young team that plays a lot of freshman and sophomores, but they do have seniors on the roster as well. It could be difficult for a coach to balance future goals with present ones.
However, Welch-Nichols does not look at it that way.
“Basically we just tell them the same thing,” Welch-Nichols said. “You just can’t worry about tomorrow, you got to live in the moment. Go out and play every game like it’s your last game or your first game.”
The team has made some obvious improvements throughout the season. The difference between the Bearkats now and the Bearkats three months ago is night and day. With such a young team that usually is the case, but unfortunately for the Bearkats, their early season struggles in conference play still affect them now. If the Bearkats are to make the SLC tournament, they will need to start playing their best basketball of the season immediately.