Concordia Puts Things in Motion

A month ago, postseason play seemed only a dream.

The Concordia men’s basketball team had lost six of eight games, and one of those victories was by only two points in overtime against the conference’s cellar-dweller.

With their record hovering around the .500 mark, the Eagles were clearly in a funk.

“We were struggling,” guard Josh Giles said. “The guys were getting a little frustrated. We were stagnant.”

All that will seem like a distant memory Wednesday morning at 10:30, when Concordia (20-15) participates in its first NAIA tournament, meeting third-seeded Lindsey Wilson (29-4) of Kentucky at the University of Tulsa.

The Eagles are one of four Golden State Athletic Conference teams to advance to the 32-team tournament field, but they are decided underdogs in Oklahoma. Fourth-seeded Azusa Pacific, ninth-seeded Westmont and 15th-seeded Biola have been to the tournament many times before and are favorites in their first-round games.

But Concordia is a newcomer. Reaching the tournament took a little coaxing from key players and a tough change of philosophy by Coach Greg Marshall to get the Eagles headed in the right direction.

Marshall, who is 154-133 in nine seasons, began the season employing a continuity offense, which more or less tells players where to go on the court. With only four returning players, he figured to adopt a more disciplined approach, but it didn’t work.

“Our offense wasn’t clicking real well at all,” said Giles, who averages 19.7 points. “We were all struggling with it.”

Heeding his players’ advice during last month’s woeful 2-6 streak, Marshall returned to the motion offense, which he has employed in past seasons to allow players to be more creative in their playmaking.

“Most of us had run the motion offense before at other places,” said Giles, the school’s all-time leading scorer. “It was more familiar to us and it has helped us grow. We have a lot of smart guys, maybe not the great athletes like Azusa Pacific does, but smart guys who can run this better.”

Said Marshall: “About halfway through the season, we realized what we were doing wasn’t fitting our personnel well, so we got some feedback from players and they felt that we had players out of position. Teaching [the motion] offense was like putting an old glove back on.”

Guard Joel Burgess was happy to see the change.

“It gives the players more freedom to ad-lib out there,” said Burgess, who averages 11.6 points. “Our former offense determined where we were going to go and it got guys out of position a little bit. It wasn’t real good for the players we had on this team.”

The switch helped boost morale, too.

“Any time you are not winning ball games you tend to point fingers, which isn’t good, but it happens,” Burgess said. “This offense has given us a lot of confidence.”

Enough to sweep three games--against Fresno Pacific, Biola and Westmont--to win the GSAC tournament.

For his efforts, Marshall received a celebratory trash can full of water dumped over his head in the Eagles’ locker room after they sewed up the NAIA bid with their 85-68 victory last Tuesday over Westmont at Whittier College.