No one has secured a starting spot for men’s basketball coach Ricardo Patton. That is, except for senior forward Egan Grafel.

After a 74-50 loss against Stephen F. Austin, the head coach said he’s still looking for four more players to join Grafel as his core group.

“We’re still looking for guys that will separate themselves from the pack and will establish themselves as the guys who ought to be playing the bulk of the minutes,” Patton said. “At this point no one has done that other than Egan.”

A total of 13 players saw action on the court in the Huskie loss. Of those, eight played 10 or more minutes.

However, one player’s time was cut short due to injury. With 35.7 seconds left in the first half, senior Ryan Paradise left with a fractured nose.

The senior played 14 of 20 minutes in the first half. With a majority of the time at point guard.

“I also think in fairness to Northern Illinois, when you lose a young man at the caliber of Ryan Paradise that’s going to make a big difference to them,” SFA coach Danny Kaspar. “I think they lost a lot when they lost him.”

Paradise left the game with two points, two rebounds, and an assist.

However, Kaspar felt the guard was a key weapon for NIU. In his eyes, without the senior the Huskies were missing an outside threat when they penetrated.

“The penetration, though it hurt us, it didn’t hurt us as much without him in the game,” Kaspar said. “It seemed like they needed him to answer. It looked like they were missing that outside threat.”

Although the Lumberjack’s coach thought NIU was missing a lot, Patton felt the loss of Paradise was not a factor in the game.

For Patton, rebounding and giving up penetration were the keys to NIU’s loss. The first-year coach felt that the guard did not play a key in these aspects of the game.

“I’m not one to hang my head on many excuses,” Patton said.

However SFA guard Eric Bell said he noticed a difference with Paradise in the game.

In the first half the Lumberjack point guard scored seven points, dished out four assists, and produced one steal. In the second half, without Paradise, the sophomore put up 11 points, seven assists, and added another steal.

“While [Paradise] was in, I was focused on keeping him from scoring. When he went out I was trying to occupy the ball handler from running the offense,” Bell said. “I was just trying to concentrate on disrupting [the other point guards] enough to where they weren’t focus on running the plays for the other guys.”