In Cam Robinson’s first season as head coach of South Arkansas Community College’s men’s basketball team, the Stars made many strides.
The Stars posted a 12-13 record, and in conference play, they picked up two of the biggest wins in school history, knocking off SAU Tech 72-64 in El Dorado along with downing Region 2 champion ASU Mid-South on the road 67-53.
“It wasn’t bad,” Robinson said. “Being able to end the regular season on a winning note. That’s how I like to look at it with a .500 record. It’s a step in the right direction. It should’ve been better. There were a couple of games that we should’ve got that we let slip away that could’ve made things a lot better.”
The Stars downed Arkansas-Cossatot 86-80 for their first league win a week before they upended SAU Tech, and those wins made the league take notice of SouthArk’s emergence.
It then became a case of the hunter becoming the hunted.
“That’s what it was,” Robinson said. “I said we weren’t the surprise team anymore. People in the conference saw like, ‘OK, this is a team you can’t take lightly.’ The first couple of games in conference it was, ‘OK, they played good. They got the win against Cossatot, but they’re still SouthArk from old.’ Once they went against us in the first go around, that mentality changed, and then getting that win against SAU Tech really opened up some eyes to where it was, ‘OK, we’ve got to take this team seriously. We’ve got to scout and make adjustments.’
“They did that and we came back with it at the same time. At the end of it all, they made more plays than us, which is part of it. I know going into next year, it’s going to be even higher just because of the expectations of them coming into our game.”
With the season now in the books, Robinson is already working on next year’s roster.
There will be plenty of change with Raheem Briggs, Braedon Edison and Jalen King representing the small cast that is returning.
Briggs averaged 11.1 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, while Edison finished right at 11 points per game along with 5.3 rebounds and 2.5 assists. King averaged 8.9 points while playing in 15 games.
“I’m losing probably 80% of the team,” Robinson said. “I’ve got three guys that will be coming back as of now. I had six or seven sophomores, a couple of other kids wanted to move in a different direction, but I’ve got three guys coming back, so I’m basically putting together a whole new team. I don’t want to say retool, but I’m trying to put together a good team.”
The players that are returning will be doing plenty of work both in the gym and in the weight room.
“It’s a lot of skill work and weight lifting,” Robinson said. “It’s the kind of stuff that we’re introducing them to and getting them ready for the preseason when they come back. We do skill work four days a week and lift four days a week. I allow them to play pick-up, especially when we have a recruit in just so we can evaluate that kid a little bit more.
“It’s skill work, ball-handling, getting up a lot of shots and then just putting them through tough, adverse situations. I feel some of the reasons we lost some of the games was because we got out-toughed a little bit, so just trying to do a better job now as far as putting them in tougher situations that they can overcome so now when that time comes in the season, they’ll be able to handle it better. They’ll have the mental makeup.”
Robinson said he is making Arkansas his top priority for recruiting as he begins his first full offseason with the Stars.
“I’m going in state first,” Robinson said. “That was one thing I wasn’t really able to do even though I had a good number of Arkansas kids on the roster.
"The kids that I was kind of on at my last school and I had known about for years since they were younger, by the time I got the job, they were already signed elsewhere, so I'm trying to get the best possible talent in the state. You can win big in this state with the kids here, so I’m trying to do that, whether it’s high school kids or transfers.”
But Robinson added he will look outside of Arkansas should the opportunity arise.
“At the same time, you have to broaden your horizons,” Robinson said. “The game plan as far as what I need to do today is to put together a good, respectable team. Braedon Edison is a Houston guy, Raheem Briggs is a Nebraska guy, Jalen King is a Georgia guy.
“I’m still going to stick with that formula there, but it’s going to start with in-state kids, work a few showcases and try to recruit a few older guys at the same time so it’s not too much of having to teach too much of the small fundamentals and get right to the nitty-gritty.”
Perhaps the biggest factor weighing in Robinson’s favor is time. When he took over as the Stars’ coach, he had very little time to put the roster together, but that has changed.
“That was really the big reason why I had to go out of state,” Robinson said. “I got the job in mid-May, and by then, a lot of those Arkansas kids were already gone. I wanted to be competitive in my first year, so I just had to go where I knew I could get players. Having the chance to be able to build a relationship with the kids, my goal is to pull in a couple of them. I’m working real hard to try to knock down some high-quality ballplayers.”
Now Robinson can focus not only on building the Stars, but he also has an idea of what the conference landscape could look like next year.
“It’s cool. It actually feels good,” Robinson said. “At this time last year, I really didn’t know exactly what I was going to be doing, and then once I got the job, it was like a full head of steam.
“I know what it is I want to do and how I want to do it, how the conference is. I know how a couple of other teams that we’ll be playing against in non-conference are, so just trying to build around that.
“I know where to get players from and where not to get them from. Being able to sit back and evaluate a little bit longer and actually get to know the kid a little bit more, get to know what type of program that the kid is coming from, how they’re running it and things like that.
“That allows me to be able to see more clearly, take the blinders off and focus on more than just can this kid play.”