Sleep has been in short supply for South Arkansas College men’s basketball coach Cam Robinson since the Stars captured the NJCAA Division II Region II title with a 62-60 win over top-ranked National Park College on Sunday.
“Not that much,” Robinson said. “We got home around 11 and I went to sleep at 1. I ended up watching a little bit of film of the team we’re going to play Saturday and woke up around 6. People were calling and waking me up, but I’m straight.”
Such is life when you come off the biggest win in the history of the program and have only a few days to prepare for St. Louis (Mo.) Community College, which visits El Dorado on Saturday in the Central Plains District Championship game with a berth in the NJCAA Division II Tournament on the line.
A month ago, the Stars fell just short against the Nighthawks in a 68-66 thriller that saw a potential game-winning 3-pointer by Troy’reon Ramos rattle in and out and a potential game-tying putback attempt at the buzzer by Braedon Edison fall short.
On Sunday, Ramos had 22 points and six assists, and the sophomore helped lead the charge in the second half after SouthArk trailed 38-29 at intermission.
“Free throws and layups,” Robinson said of the halftime adjustments that were made. “I was talking about that throughout the whole tournament. We make the majority of our free throws and layups, we put ourselves in a position to win. In the first half, we were missing a bunch of free throws and layups, and then we weren’t getting back in transition.
“The one thing about National Park, they play a slow-tempo system, but they thrive off of getting transition points, so it allowed them to get those easy buckets and then play at their tempo. They got control. They played harder than us the last three or four minutes of the first half, so I was actually calm in that situation.
“I just told my guys, ‘We’ve got make our layups.’ Troy actually missed a layup at the buzzer that would’ve put us down seven and would’ve given us some momentum going into halftime, so I just let them know to stay with it. It’s a championship game. It’s not supposed to be easy. We came out and played a little bit better on defense, talked more, moved more, a little bit tougher. That was one of the differences in the game.”
Robinson said his team kept their composure despite trailing by a sizable deficit at halftime, and once they got back into the game, their confidence grew.
“This is honestly the best we’ve handled it all year,” Robinson said. “Usually if we were down at half in the regular season during conference time, it would be two points, three points or five points, but to be down nine in the championship game, once we got some shots falling and got some stops, the confidence starting rolling in.
“It was now, ‘Hey, let’s stick to what it is that we’ve been doing to get to this point.’ It was now trying to make sure that (Nakavieon)White didn’t get any easy shots and we got the best shot. An emphasis on the game offensively was to hunt great shots. Once we started doing that, we just kept it simple. The gist of it was just valuing every possession, and we did that a little bit better than National Park.”
Scoring was at a premium down the stretch, and Robinson credited Ramos for finding open teammates after the Nighthawks began to focus their attention on him.
“At that time, it was really more about getting stops,” Robinson said. “A little bit before that, Troy Ramos was hot. He made a couple of buckets for us, and then the attention started getting on him a little bit more. He started trying to force it a tad bit.
“That’s when some other guys started getting open. He started taking shots that he probably should’ve passed out, but he did a good job of making the adjustment and started making the extra pass. We started getting some put-back layups. We were getting those offensive rebounds and going back up.”
In their encounter last month in El Dorado, Taylor Harrell slammed home a miss to give the Nighthawks a key bucket down the stretch, but he was limited to just four points by the Stars on Sunday.
“With National Park, there was a tendency that when things weren’t going well for them offensively, they like to go to their seven-footer, throw it inside and he can just overpower everybody and get an easy bucket or free throws,” Robinson said. “We were able to toughen it out and make them work. We were going vertical and doing a good job of not fouling them.”
One factor the Nighthawks will be lamenting is their shooting from the free-throw line. National Park was just 12-of-24 from the charity stripe, including one by Nakavieon White that rattled in and out in the final seconds that would’ve tied the game.
“Even when we did (foul), they weren’t making their free throws,” Robinson said. “If they could go back and look at it, if they made their free throws in the second half, they probably would’ve been in a better position to close the game out, but they missed a lot of timely free throws, especially the one at the end that would’ve tied the game. We got some rare offensive putbacks, and they weren’t making their tough shots and missing free throws, so I think that was the difference in the last five minutes.”
Although SouthArk has another crucial game looming, Robinson said his team is savoring the moment of their first region title.
“It’s good. It’s real good,” Robinson said. “It’s big for the players. We have really, really been working hard. It’s not a surprise, but it’s one of those deals that we’ve really been working toward it, and it’s happened, so it’s like a surreal feeling. It’s big for the school, big for the city. It gives hope that you can make something happen at SouthArk. We’ve got to keep building on it.”