In their run to the Region 2 crown, one facet that stayed consistent throughout South Arkansas College’s three tournament games was their defense.
In their three games, the Stars held Shorter College, North Arkansas College and National Park College to a combined 39% from the floor.
Against National Park, the No. 1 ranked team in the country, the Stars limited the Nighthawks to just 36% shooting from the floor.
For SouthArk coach Cam Robinson, his mantra is simple.
“If you want to play, you’re going to play defense,” Robinson said. “That’s the mentality the guys have. We start off with defensive stuff the first 30 or 40 minutes of practice. I actually joke about it. If you look at our points per game, you would say that our offense is rolling, but we have certain time periods in the game where we’re stagnant offensively.
“We don’t talk offense as much in practice, it’s more defense, defense, even if we’re doing an offensive drill or segment, I catch myself still talking about defense. I’ve made it an emphasis and they’ve made it an emphasis that we’ve got to guard. When things are not going right, it’s not because we’re missing shots, it’s because we’re not guarding. If we guard, the offense is going to come.”
Jalen King, a sophomore who secured the rebound on a missed free throw by National Park’s Nakavieon White with 3.5 seconds left, drew praise from Robinson for the role he has taken.
“There’s been players who have stepped up throughout the season,” Robinson said. “Jalen King has been one who has had a small role throughout the season. Since the first part of conference, he’s really been playing big. He’s embraced the role of playing defense and be the junkyard dog.”
KeShun Brown, who scored a season-high 16 points in the February thriller between SouthArk and National Park, also has delivered on the defensive end.
“KeShun Brown, the freshman point guard that comes behind Troy (Ramos), his biggest thing when he comes on the floor is, ‘I’m going 94 feet. I’m guarding the ball. I’m going to make my impact on the game on defense,’” Robinson said. “Troy Ramos, even though he’s our leading scorer and he does a lot offensively, when he’s playing defense, our team is a whole lot better because now it’s making it tougher for them to get in the paint. We talk about that all the time. Defense is what we live on. I joke around with it. I go to sleep saying defense, wake up saying defense, brush my teeth saying defense.”
In Sunday’s championship game, SouthArk got three straight stops down the stretch to maintain their 60-59 lead into the final minute of play.
“It wasn’t easy,” Robinson said. “It was tough. They’re big and athletic with White and (Patrick) Punch. When they’re attacking the goal, it’s tough to do anything with them.
“We stood in their way, not moving out of the way and if they threw their body into us, just take the contact and go from there. We did a good job of balancing, especially with the seven-footer (Taylor Harrell). Whenever he was going up, instead of taking a step back and allowing him to cover ground, we took the ground away from him.
“They settled on that first contact and just started throwing shots up, so we really just played tough, especially those last two or three minutes. We were missing shots and turning the ball over, and they had an opportunity with their size to be able to come in and make some shots that could’ve changed the whole direction of the game, but we stayed there, didn’t move out of the way.
“We played defense fundamentally the right way. We stayed low, didn’t reach, jumped straight up, boxed out, and most importantly, scrap, scrap, scrap.
“We had a philosophy for that game as far as a game plan, but when it boiled down to it, all of the moves are about stopping the ball in front of you and getting the rebound if it comes off the rim.”