The Lincoln men's basketball team earned a well-deserved day off Saturday.
That's a rarity during the second half of the college basketball season - unless a team plays Sunday instead or has a game canceled due to winter weather - but the Blue Tigers received the day off after playing three games in a six-day stretch.
They were a pretty good three games for Lincoln. They were all wins.
After sweeping a home-and-home series against Lindenwood, which spanned all of four days, Lincoln recorded its biggest win of the season by upsetting Central Missouri 79-65 on Thursday at Jason Gym.
There was a time earlier this season Lincoln was sitting at the bottom of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association standings. The Blue Tigers dropped their first five conference games, unable to win one until the first week of January.
Now Lincoln (15-11) has climbed all the way into a tie for sixth place with a 9-8 MIAA record and two games to play.
It was a big deal two years ago when Lincoln finished with its first winning season in 14 years. It was an even bigger deal during that 2015-16 season to make the MIAA Tournament for the first time since 1987.
The Blue Tigers clinched their third straight winning season Thursday, and they are on pace to host a game in the first round of the conference tournament for the second time in three seasons.
John Moseley's first season as Lincoln's head coach in 2014-15 ended with a dismal 4-24 record. It was the seventh straight season the Blue Tigers did not win more than five games, and their only MIAA win was the conference opener against Northeastern State.
My, on my, how things have changed since then.
Lincoln followed with a 16-14 record in Moseley's second season, then went 17-13 last year before being eliminated in the MIAA Tournament by Northwest Missouri, a team that would go on to win the NCAA Division II national championship.
It helped that Lincoln was led by the duo of Anthony Virdure and Jaylon Smith, who combined to score more than 50 percent of team's points. Virdure dropped 50 points in the Blue Tigers' home game against top-ranked Northwest Missouri.
We knew the 2017-18 Blue Tigers were going to have a new look. In addition to losing Virdure and Smith, Lincoln only returned three players total from last year's roster.
It was supposed to be a rebuilding season. Instead, Lincoln just reloaded.
Moseley brought in eight transfer players and three freshmen to fill up the roster. Moseley wasn't being nave when we met before the season began for a season preview interview.
"Talent is the first step to it, and then there's a chemistry that comes next," he said.
Basically, he was saying his team was going to be much better in February than in November, once the players got more games together under their belt.
Moseley knew what he was talking about, as the Blue Tigers have won seven of their last eight games. The loss? It came on the road against those defending national champion Bearcats.
Rather than relying on a 1-2 punch like it did last season, Lincoln has a balanced scoring attack in 2017-18. Four players are averaging better than 10 points per game, and a fifth player - who comes off the bench and leads the team in rebounding - is pretty close at 9.5 points per game.
A win Thursday at home against Missouri Western clinches a winning conference record for the Blue Tigers, who again, started 0-5 league play. They'll wrap up the regular season Saturday at home against Northwest Missouri, which they lost to 80-75 in last season's meeting at Jason Gym.
Looking ahead, Lincoln only loses two seniors off this year's roster. Both are starters, but the Blue Tigers have bench players who will be ready to take their place in the starting lineup.
Lincoln will likely need to win the MIAA Tournament to get into the NCAA Division II Tournament, but the Blue Tigers are making college basketball in Jefferson City relevant again.
"This program is built for another two years of success," Moseley said in that preseason interview.
Yeah, I'd listen to Moseley. It's pretty clear he knows what he's talking about.