OLIVER KIMOKEO | sports editor

For the Cougar basketball teams on campus, this upcoming week will be about establishing identity for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs to come.

Women’s basketball has played with an impressive veracity. The T.J. Hardeman era has instituted a level of toughness on both the defensive and offensive ends of the court. Another staple of a Hardeman-coached squad is a team that does not quit on the court.

All of those elements have come together well for the Cougars. They have a 14-2 start with a 6-0 record in GSAC. In addition, they have kept their opponents under 60 points per game, which is an eight-point improvement from last year.

I have concerns that they are playing down to their competition though. The Cougars played two of the GSAC bottom three in the last week with only a six-point win and a seven-point win to show for it. I give credit to the Cougars for pulling those wins out but APU should be taking care of those games early.

Despite the close games against the lower half of GSAC, the Cougars have built a pedigree of five wins against the NAIA Top 25, including No. 7 Point Loma Nazarene.

The next three games will be pivotal for the Cougars: they will be facing No. 2 Vanguard and No. 8 The Master’s at home on Saturday and Tuesday respectively. Next Saturday, they will travel to Riverside to face No. 18 California Baptist.

A 3-0 record through those games will put the Cougars on top of the GSAC standings heading toward the Biola game on Jan. 29, while a 2-1 or 1-2 record will take their GSAC destiny out of their hands. The 14-2 start is huge so far but the next eight days will reveal what team the Cougars will be this year: an upstart NAIA contender or a conventional GSAC sleeper who still has work to do.

Every single time it seems that the men’s basketball team is turning the corner, they end up losing a game they should not be if they want to be a GSAC contender. This time, it’s a 66-59 loss to Fresno Pacific, a school they defeated 32 times in a row dating back to 1992. Not only that but the Sunbirds have not had a winning GSAC record since 1995; they may break the drought this year but they are still under .500 in GSAC so far this season.

The Cougars have been the poster boys of inconsistence. They have won by 63 and 41 points but they also have lost by 25 points. I have seen this team look invincible and unstoppable on the court but they also have looked vulnerable and full of holes.

It is quite obvious that head coach Justin Leslie is somewhat frustrated with his young and injured team. Leslie has yet to come up with a lineup in which he is comfortable with. Only one player, senior forward Davon Roberts, has been averaging more than 25 minutes a game. Leslie has been experimenting with his player rotations as he is trying to develop the magic formula which will work for the team.

Leslie is quite an energetic coach. He is constantly off the bench during games to alert his players of the formations and adjustments he wants. He already looks comfortable in his role as head coach and he will soon develop his basketball coaching niche. Like the players, he is finding his way to the promised land via a windy road of persistence and determination.

The Cougars are nowhere near refined at this point and they have a lot of kinks to work out. APU is a middle-of-the-road team right now—a team which can not be considered a contender at the moment. They have the potential to be better but it will still take some growing pains and some hard losses for the Cougars to find their new identity under Leslie. To achieve this, the Cougars may need to take three steps backward to go two steps forward.