At the start of the season, the Sam Houston State men’s basketball team was picked to finish seventh in the conference. The Bearkats had lost two of thebest players in school history in Seneca Wall and Jeremy Burkhalter, and many people expected the Bearkats to have a down year.However, the emergence of four junior college transfers – Donald Cole, Robert Shannon, Jay Oliphant and Felton Freeman – has given the Bearkats a quick fix and a bright future.”They are all getting used to Division-I basketball,” said coach Bob Marlin. “It’s a change. Every time you go up in level it’s a big jump so it takes a while to get used to what you’re trying to do.”The four players have had to make major adjustments from junior college ball to Division-I basketball, and all four have had an immediate impact on the team Cole, a 6 foot 8 inch forward from Port Arthur, Texas, attended Navarro Junior College. At Navarro he led all Texas junior colleges in rebounding, with 13.1 per game. He also averaged 18.9 points per game while shooting 54 percent from the field. This season Cole leads the Kats in both rebounding and scoring with 16 points and 10.8 rebounds per game. The 10.8 rebounds per game put Cole in the top eight rebounders in the country.Freeman, a 6 foot 5 inch forward from Abilene, Texas, attended Panola College in Carthage, where he averaged 18.2 points and 10.3 rebounds per game. So far this season, Freeman is averaging 9.7 points per game for the Kats, with his best game coming against Lamar University, when he scored 28 points.Shannon, a 6 foot 1 inch point guard from Baton Rouge, La., attended Lee College, where he averaged 6.2 assists per game. This season Shannon is averaging 5.7 assists per game and 6.7 points per game.Oliphant, a Huntsville native, is a 6 foot 8 inch forward that attended Blinn Junior College. He averaged 19.9 points and 8.9 rebounds per game at Blinn. Oliphant led the National Junior College Athletic Association with a 72 field goal percentage. He is currently averaging 10 points and 6.4 rebounds for the Kats.Oliphant said coming back to Huntsville has been nice because he gets to play in front of the same fans that he did in high school.”It’s been nice playing in front of my old fans,” Oliphant said. “I have a lot of support from high school and a lot of people come to see me play, so it makes it easier to play when there are fans that support me.”Cole said all four guys knew they would have to play their best from the start for the Bearkats to have a good season. He said it was important that they prove to everybody they were good enough to play at the Division-I level.”We wanted to come in and let everybody know that weren’t just good at playing junior college basketball,” Cole said. “We wanted to come in and make a statement that we could play at the Division-I level just as good as we did at the junior college level”People come in and say ‘there’s the new guys. I wonder how they’re going to play,'” Cole said. “Everybody’s expecting us to fill a big role coming out of junior college. As players, we all averaged like 18 to 20 points a game, and we want to do the same thing for this team.”With all four players having to make the adjustment from junior college ball to Division-I, Oliphant and Shannon said going through it with the other guys has made the transition a little easier.”It’s helped us adjust because we’re all used to playing JUCO ball, and it’s totally different,” Oliphant said. “It’s good to have three other guys that have been through the same situations because they understand what you’re going through, so that’s been real nice to have.””It makes it comfortable,” Shannon said. “They know what the JUCO level is like, and I know what it’s like. They know where I’m coming from, now we’re coming to play together.””Playing with some of the guys I played against last year has been fun,” Freeman added. “All four of us played junior college ball, so it’s nothing new for us. Actually, it’s been fun and rather challenging.”The Bearkats currently have a 9-8 record overall with wins over Texas Tech and Nebraska and have a 4-5 Southland Conference record. With 11 games left to play in conference, there are a lot of possibilities for the Kats and the outcome of their season. So far Marlin said he ispleased with the growth of his team.”They say that it takes junior college players a year to get acclimated, and in their second year they really blossom,” Marlin said. “We’ve put these guys’ feet to the fire from the start, and I think they’ve done a good job for us, obviously. I think that next year they’ll be much better off with their experiences from their junior year.”