As it dives into the final weeks of the regular season, the University of Charleston men's basketball team has plenty to play for.
The Golden Eagles currently sit in seventh place in the Mountain East Conference with four regular season games remaining, - giving them some time to try climbing up the standings for an MEC tournament bye.
"We really want to get into that top six because it's just difficult to win four games in four days, especially in this conference," UC coach Dwaine Osborne said. "If you get that bye, you have a week to prepare and you know who you're facing.
"It's a huge opportunity for us to make a push here late."
If they're going to close the season out the way they're hoping to, they will need to continue to get good production out of its point guards. Luckily for UC, that hasn't been an issue for much of the season.
Elliott Cole transferred from Chicago State and immediately emerged as one of the conference's top scorers, averaging 19.5 points per game to currently put him at No. 6 in the MEC. And while Cole provided the scoring touch until he became sidelined with an injury a few games ago, Jaylen Hinton has stepped in admirably handling duties as the team's main distributor at the point guard spot while L.J. Johnson has also shown the ability to score in bunches at times.
Osborne has been particularly pleased with Hinton's play as of late. The redshirt junior guard, who is one of five Division I transfers on the Charleston roster after transferring from Georgia State, has been vital in UC's turnaround in the last few weeks.
"Jaylen really brings a calming influence to the court for us," Osborne said. "The things he does don't usually show up in a box score but he takes care of the ball extremely well. He's been really good for us and has made some big shots for us since Elliott has been out. He's playing with a lot of confidence and when he does that, we're a better team."
And Charleston saw how tough it can become if those three guards aren't on the floor. Versus Glenville State on Saturday - with Cole still out, Hinton hindered after tweaking his ankle and Johnson in foul trouble - the Golden Eagles (14-10, 8-10 Mountain East) were without their point guards down the stretch, and ended up suffering an 87-78 loss to the Pioneers.
"We have three point guards on our roster. One was out and didn't dress, our two others - [Johnson] had three fouls with 14 minutes to go and [Hinton] was dragging his ankle around for most of the night," Osborne said. "We had to do a lot of different things with our lineup there late that we maybe wouldn't usually do and we had guys playing in positions where they don't even practice."
The Golden Eagles will have the chance to bounce back on Thursday as it begins that final stretch with a home showdown against a Shepherd team that is currently No. 4 in the league.
"We have a lot of goals when we start the season. We started by saying we wanted to win a regular season conference championship and that's out now. So the focus is working toward our other goals, and our next one is winning the conference tournament," Osborne said. "We just want to finish strong so we can set ourselves up to have the best chance we can possibly have of trying to make a run in the tournament when that comes around."