Spivery confident Jags can win SWAC this year

Southern head basketball coach Rob Spivery said if not this year then next year will certainly be the Jaguars turn to win the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship.
“We’re certainly going to make a run this year and if we don’t happen to win it this year, then next year with all these players returning will certainly be our year to win it again,” said Spivery.
Spivery’s team was picked to finish fifth in the SWAC in a poll conducted by the conference office in which votes were received from the league’s head coaches and sports information directors.
“It’s going to be a good year,” Spivery said. “I think we’re going to finish very well. We’ve been picked to finish preseason by the coaches in the league and the SID’s to finish fifth. I think that’s a good place for us considering where we finished last year and the make-up of our team coming back.”
“I thought they would pick us quite lower than that but I guess it says something about your team when we can be picked higher than you are expected,” Spivery said. “I think we will certainly finish higher than that. I think we will have a chance to really compete for the championship again.”
Southern finished the 2006-07 season with a (10-21, 9-9 SWAC) and only returns two seniors in C/F Joseph Jack and G Joe Holliday.
And, although the schedule boasts teams such as LSU, Missouri and Auburn, it isn’t as brutal as last years, which matched up the Jaguars against Florida, Wisconsin, Georgia and Oklahoma State.
“We have a challenging schedule like we always do,” Spivery said. “We open up at home against Tougaloo College in an exhibition game and the regular season against SMU.”
“This is a team I’m very excited about,” Spivery said. “We’re competitive everyday day in practice, something we did not experience last year. Last year we had a lot of new guys and had to depend on them playing. This year it’s a different story.”
“Last year we were not able to play a number of players because of the limited experience and the limited number of players,” Spivery said. “This year we’re deep at every position so we stand a chance to play a different style in terms of upping the tempo and pressing, extending the defense.”
“We’re always going to be a good defensive team but this year we can play a variety of defenses full court,” Spivery said. “That’s what I’m looking forward too.”
Lagniappe
During Spivery’s three year tenure at Southern he has been able to keep the coaching staff intact. Assistant coaches Joe Proctor, Sean LeBeauf and Shelton Jones all arrived with Spivery and took part in the Jaguars championship season in 2006.
“It’s always good to keep a coaching staff intact, and we’ve been able to do that for three years now,” Spivery said. “Anytime you can keep the same personnel on the coaching staff it means good things, consistency and continuity in the program.”