CSU men, women put 4-0 PBC start on line against Georgia Southwestern

Columbus State and Georgia Southwestern faced similar daunting schedules to begin the new year.

Each played on the road on Saturday and Monday. The two teams were scheduled to meet Wednesday at the Lumpkin Center. Then both schools had home games scheduled for Saturday -- four games in eight days.

So the schools got together and decided to postpone Wednesday's game to Thursday. Tipoff for the women's game is set for 5:30 p.m. at the Lumpkin Center. The men are set to follow at 7:30 p.m.

For CSU men's coach Robert Moore and women's coach Jonathan Norton, the tough stretch has necessitated some adjustments.

"The main thing is getting prepared to play more people," Moore said. "The second string guys will get more playing time."

Norton echoed those comments.

"It is a big challenge physically and mentally, especially with such a long road trip. It extended into five days -- long bus rides," Norton said.

"I have to do a better job as a coach to get the second team ready to play more minutes and cut down on the number of minutes that the starters play."

Playing the bench more doesn't equal less success for either team, however.

The Cougars have won four straight to improve to 10-1 overall and 4-0 in the Peach Belt Conference. They are tied with Young Harris atop the Western Division standings.

Meanwhile, the Lady Cougars have won seven straight to move to 10-1 and 4-0. They are tied with Georgia College and Clayton State.

The success of both programs is a source of pride for the coaches.

"You have to work hand-in-hand with both programs together," Moore said. "You really like to see success of the women's program. I think it makes our guys ready to play because they play before us. It motivates our guys. They say we have to go out and win also. And with the women having such a great record last year, I think our guys were challenged to have a great record."

The Cougars have had success despite having few returnees from last season.

"More than anything, they breed on the success of one another," Moore said. "They don't care who gets the credit. All of them want everyone to do well. They share the basketball, and they don't care who is having a good game that night. They are going to keep feeding that guy. One night it might be Cam Baker. One night it might be Brent Jackson. But I think they love playing with each other and the success they are having right now."

The Lady Cougars are the opposite with most of the team back from last year.

"We returned a good nucleus from last year that was successful, so they have tried to build on that," Norton said. "They know what to expect in conference. We have had some tough conference games especially on the road. These last two we had to scratch and claw to win. The leadership of Michelle Mitchell and Britteny Tatum and Ashley Johnson. It is that leadership and experience of kind of going through the battles that has really helped us."

Kevin Price, 706-320-4493, Follow Kevin on Twitter@lesports

This story was originally published January 6, 2016 at 5:03 PM with the headline "CSU men, women put 4-0 PBC start on line against Georgia Southwestern ."