By Jim O'Hara
 
ROME, Ga. – The preliminaries are over.

On Thursday night, the Shorter men's basketball team will find out if all their hard work they put in during the off-season, the pre-season and what has been a solid start to their season against non-conference foes has paid off when the Hawks embark on a Gulf South Conference quest that is in front of them from here on out.

"Conference play is just so much different than preseason play," Shorter head coach Chad Warner said as he team gets ready to host one of the hottest teams in the conference, unbeaten Union, in the GSC opener of Thursday night at 8 p.m. in the Winthrop-King Centre, then remain home on Saturday entertaining No. 18-ranked Christian Brothers. 

"Teams know each other so much better it just makes for much more of a battle," the coach continued. "We are eager to get the conference season started and find out what we are made of."

The Hawks have provided a hint of what they are capable of as Shorter enters conference play boasting a 5-1 record, the lone loss coming on the road two weeks ago to Southern Indiana.

Since then, however, the Hawks won their last two outings pouring in 99 points in victories over North Georgia and Point, a game last Saturday that saw sophomore Brock Rowan turn in a career-best performance when he set a new team record by nailing nine three-pointers and finish with career-high 32 points.

That output has helped give make an already potent Shorter offense even more explosive as the Hawks are averaging 92.5 points each time they take the hardwood and as a team have found the touch, connecting on 52 percent of their shots from the floor.

Emerging as the tip of the team's spear has been senior guard Dedric Ware, who leads the Hawks averaging 19.3 points and has a remarkable 6.3 assists a game.

Adding to the scoring balance has been sophomore Jordan Jacks, who has added 17.7 points and 7.2 rebounds per contest, while also coming up with 2.2 steals; junior Kordario Fleming, who is scoring at a 13.3 ppg clip; sophomore Chris Daniels, closing in on a double-figure average with a  9.2 ppg mark; and senior guard Travis Jones, who joins Ware in dishing out 3.3 assists a game, a trait shared by the entire team as the Hawks have averaged of 20 a game.

Yet Warner and the Hawks are well aware that one might as well toss all the early stats out the proverbial window. There are, they understand, no easy games in front of them for the next three months.

And Union, which was picked by the league's coaches to finish last this year in a preseason poll, is a prime example of that as the Bulldogs come to Rome having gotten the season off to a 6-0 start, the first two wins coming at Winthrop-King when they played in the season-opening Shorter Classic rolling past LeMoyne-Owen and Spring Hill.

Fresh from cruising past Truett-McConnell last Saturday, 86-71, Union averages 85 points a game – the Bulldogs yield an average of 69 points to foes – with Jordan Montgomery leading the team with a 20 ppg average.

Two days later in a 4 p.m. start at WKC, the Hawks will turn their attention to nationally-ranked Christian Brothers University, which was picked to finish second in the league in the preseason coaches' poll.

The 2-1 Buccaneers, who visits Lee on Thursday in their GSC debut, are coming off their first loss of the year to No. 5-ranked Bellermine last week after opening up the season shocking Division I Memphis in an exhibition and taking down Harding and Blue Mountain.

Trey Casey leads CBU averaging a conference-best 27 points a game.

After hosting the conference pair, the Hawks board the bus for their first two GSC road tests visiting West Florida on Dec. 11 and Valdosta State on Dec. 15, then are back home for their final two games of 2014 facing Alabama-Huntsville on Dec. 18 and North Alabama on Dec. 20.

"Our preseason conditioning and preseason games have all pointed towards the GSC," said Warner. "We will continue to try and get better each day and trust the results. 

"It will take a complete TEAM effort to have the kind of success that we are chasing."