Record doesn't tell Badgers' story

EPHRAIM — Ask just about any Snow College official and they'll tell you the men's basketball team has a 10-7 record. On paper, however, it's a different story.

Last week the Badgers officially became 3-14, following the NJCAA's rejection of Snow's appeal of an earlier decision that forfeited eight pre-conference games because of an ineligible player on Snow's roster during first semester.

Although that player, James Sonneberg, has regained eligibility, the NJCAA's decision heaped yet another disappointment upon what has been a frustrating time for the Badgers.

The first half of Snow's season resembles the Man with Two Faces: "Duality" best characterizes the team, and the side you see depends on where you're looking from.

Take the disparity between the official and unofficial records.

The 3-14 record misleadingly portrays the Badgers as a terrible team. But they aren't, and Snow coach Roger Reid doesn't acknowledge the forfeit losses and cites only the more respectable 10-7 record.

"Our players know they won those games and I couldn't care less about it," he says.

"That's the right way to look at it," says Snow athletic director Bob Trythall. "There's nothing wrong with that attitude. Everyone knows we won the games."

Snow officials are so resolute on the issue that public relations director Rick Pike says the college will refer only to the team's conference record in press releases and other information.

That record, when compared with the non-conference record, reveals another disparity in the Badgers' season.

In Scenic West Athletic Conference games Snow is 1-5 after finally beating a SWAC team — Colorado Northwestern Community College — on Friday; otherwise, the Badgers are 9-2 against 10 teams from nine different conferences. But that may say more about the strength of the SWAC than it does about the Badger team.

Another duality is the difference between what might be expected of a team with a big-name coach like Roger Reid, and what the team is actually producing.

But that contrast may be unfair. By the time Reid took over for Jon Judkins, who left Snow last spring to go to Dixie State, it was late in the recruiting season and Judkins had not done any recruiting for Snow, Reid says. Judkins had in fact recruited his Snow players to follow him to Dixie. Several did.

"We got the job late," Reid says. "That hurt us. We started with the cupboard bare."

The team has several potentially outstanding players. Shooting guards Mike Clark (South Jordan) and Dant'e Green (Los Angeles), as well as center Jason Palmer (Bountiful), come quickly to mind.

But as on-fire as those can be, they haven't been consistent, and haven't provided enough support behind Geoff Payne, the team's one consistent player who has turned out to be the star of the show.

If other players can learn to be more consistent, Reid says, the team's fortunes should change.

"Somebody has to step up and be consistent," he says. "When everybody's clicking, it really works."