Clarksville, TN – This time last week it looked like Austin Peay was headed down the long road of despair without an off-ramp in site. The Govs had lost their first three Ohio Valley Conference games, including a not so pleasant 87-75 loss to archrival and now No. 10/12 Murray State on January 7th. And the first two defeats on the road to Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State came after they held leads late in the game.
Things started to get a little better after Austin Peay repaid EKU and topped them 80-65 in the Dunn Center on January 12th and while the 60-57 victory over Jacksonville State this past Saturday was a little closer than many thought it would be, the Govs persevered and held off the Gamecocks to make it a two-game winning streak.
So again what a long way the Govs have come in six games. No they still don’t look like a team that was predicted to win the OVC like they were by their peers in the preseason. But with three victories under their belts, the Govs can say they’re not going to go down without a fight and just may have a say in who finishes first by the time the regular season ends for them at Southeast Missouri on February 25th.
They now head into a stretch of three more very winnable games at SIU Edwardsville Thursday, at Eastern Illinois next Saturday and at Southeast Missouri next Thursday. Win those three and the Govs can feel even better about themselves because they’d be a nice and tidy 6-3 with seven games left in the league schedule and they have a good chance to go 7-3 because their next home game after the road trip is against currently-winless UT Martin on January 28th.
But none of these games are going to be easy and certainly don’t think the Govs are going to run away with any of them, because as athletic as they are, this team is just not the one that can consistently go into a gym thinking they will blow the opposition out by 15 or 20. And what be the most ironic thing for APSU is its going to have to win games at the free-throw line, which really hasn’t been this collection of Govs’ strongest area.
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Going into the game against TSU, the Govs were just making 67.1 percent from the charity stripe and they didn’t blaze a trail against the Tigers in making just 65.4 percent Monday night. But they’ve limited some of the things that can hurt them since going back to a more patient style of play and the most important of those is not jacking up the 3-pointer. Austin Peay attempted 11 against EKU and lost. The Govs threw up 12 tries in the loss to Morehead State and 15 in the loss to the Racers.
They were headed down the same road against Eastern Kentucky and went 1-for-5 from downtown in the first half, but calmed down and made 1-of-2 in the second half. The Govs went 4-of-14 against Tennessee State, but don’t expect that many attempts again anytime soon.
“We don’t shoot the 3 well enough so we have to make up for that and I think we can do it at the free-throw line, if we get it inside,” Govs coach Dave Loos said.
Reading between the lines, Loos is saying, the up-tempoed, get-up-and-down-the-floor game the Govs had hoped to play this year just isn’t going to happen. It’s going to come down to center John Fraley shouldering the load and not the guards. But John is man enough to get the job done and if the Govs play Loos’ way, they just might hold up some hardware at the end of the season like they were predicted to.
