The St. Edward’s men’s basketball team has a current 7-1 record, which is the best Heartland Conference record among Division II (DII) teams eligible for post-season play.

Starting with their most recent win against DII Texas A&M-Kingsville University on Dec. 2, here is a fall semester recap and what to expect heading into conference play on Dec. 17 at home.

At home, the team stands 4-0. SEU Head Coach Andre Cook said the team’s 90-73 win against Kingsville was “the best we’ve played.”

Cook said the team executed his gameplan to perfection, as they  “switched when they were supposed to, trapped when they were supposed to – and that’s why we were up by 29 at one point.”

“I think the Kingsville game proves to them if they are locked in and they play with energy and enthusiasm, how good they can be,” Cook said, which is the mentality he wanted the team to grasp since their very first home game on Nov. 17.

During the upcoming finals week, Cook wants the team to concentrate on their studies, so he will be having a less intense practice schedule, which allows him to work on scouting reports for upcoming games. Over the one week break for Christmas, Cook says he will put the film aside and enjoy some time with his family and try to attend some San Antonio Spurs games.

Cook credits the veteran starters for their reliability, but also highlights the reserve players for their importance to the season.  

“This just can’t be five guys playing ironman basketball. We need a bench, and we need those guys to play well,” Cook said. “We suit up 12, and we need them all. We need them all to be ready and know the game plan.”

St. Edward’s has a healthy team that has won all of their games by a minimum of five points, and four games with at least a 15 point difference.

“They brought it for the four DII schools – Angelo, the two Colorado Schools and now Kingsville,” Cook said.

The only loss in the record books is to Angelo State University on Nov. 21, which had an extremely close final score of 79-78.

The other two losses were in exhibition games against DI schools, which do not count in the overall record. The first was 78-50 against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi University on Nov. 23, and the other was 93-72 against Rice University on Dec. 5.

“Because it’s such a veteran group, we wanted to see everything take another step – see our offense develop a little more to where we use more options, see our defense, our rotations, our communications – all of that be even better,” Cook said. “And we’re getting there.”

Cook said that the team needs to take the lessons from the Costa Rica basketball tour in the summer, as well as the concepts they already know, and advance them moving forward.

“Every game is going to be hard from Kingsville on. There is no play at ‘C-level’ game and win. Everyone who was [at the game against Kingsville] saw the team they can expect to see for the next ten home games,” Cook said.