Most sports are, in some ways at least, a game of percentages.

Take a look at any stat sheet and you'll figure that out pretty easily.

For both Freed-Hardeman basketball teams, percentages have very much played a role in their wins and losses over the course of this season and particularly in the last few weeks.  Lately, it's been a role reversal for the two teams.

From late November through early January, it was the Lions who were struggling with the percentage game.  After starting the season 7-1, they lost five of six games thanks at least in some part to poor shooting from 3-point range.  In their first eight games, FHU shot 50.7 percent from the field and 35.3 percent from beyond the arc; in their next six, the Lions shot 44.9 percent from the field and 27.6 percent from 3-point range.

Fortunes quickly reversed in their last two games, though.  The Lions have shot 43.8 percent (21-for-48) from beyond the arc and 52.9 percent (63-for-119) overall in a pair of blowout wins over Trevecca and Martin Methodist, percentages much more in line with the 7-1 start to the season.

So what's been the difference?

Pretty simple, according to head coach Jason Shelton.

"They went in," he said.  "It's basketball.  That's just how it is.  We've been doing the same things in practices and games [as we did before]."

The same thing could be said for the Lady Lions, who are now suffering through the same type of slump that plagued their counterparts for the better part of a month.  Unfortunately for the women, their slump hit at a most inopportune time - the start of conference play.

After averaging 84.8 points per game during a non-conference schedule that was ranked as one of the toughest in the NAIA by the Massey Ratings while shooting 45.0 percent from the field and 38.1 percent from 3-point range, the brakes were slammed on the Lady Lions' offense.  In their four conference games, FHU is shooting 41.1 percent from the field and 29.6 percent from 3-point range.  The result has been an average of 59.3 points per game in their first four conference contests.

Like the men's team, the Lady Lions' shooters have been getting good looks at the basket.  The only difference lately is, the shots just haven't been going in.

But there's no need for FHU fans to panic.  The results from the first 13 games are much more representative of the team's shooting prowess than the last four.  As Coach Shelton said, that's basketball.  Sometimes the shots just don't go in, no matter how open you are or how great your form is.

Just as the percentages have started to come back around to the Lions' favor, so they will for the Lady Lions.

And my guess is that it's going to be sooner rather than later.

It's a few days old news by now, but Lady Lion basketball coach Dale Neal recently picked up his 400th win with the program on Friday, Dec. 11, when FHU hammered Lane, 76-37.  You can read the story from that game here, and be on the lookout for a short-ish feature on the 400th win coming later today.

But the beauty of a blog, as opposed to the "regular" stories, is that I get to editorialize.  So editorialize I will.

I was lucky enough to be behind the microphone for the radio broadcast on FM91 of both Neal's 200th win (on 11/21/02) and the 400th win, as well as two of the three TranSouth Conference championships in 2004 and 2005.  For those who don't remember (and most of you surely won't), I was the play-by-play broadcaster for FHU basketball from 2001-2005, which meant I got to see a lot of Lady Lion basketball when the program was taking a big step forward.  It was fun to watch and really was an exciting time as players like Jessica Woodard, Ashlee Robertson and Stacy Myers all came through the program and made impacts from the start of their four years at Freed-Hardeman.  Woodard is already in the FHU Athletics Hall of Fame, and the other two are certainly locks to join her when they become eligible.

By the time I moved into the play-by-play chair, Neal had already established the Lady Lions on the national scene thanks in part to their Cinderella run to the Fab Four in 1999.  Though I worked at FHU at the time (in Human Resources), I never took the chance to go watch the team play before becoming the broadcaster.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  I did broadcast one game during his first season while I was a student here.  All I remember is that a) we won, and b) Stacey Montgomery hit what was nearly a half-court shot at the first half closed.

What I, and probably anyone else for that matter, didn't realize is that we were witnessing the beginning of something special.

Neal arrived in Henderson in 1994 and immediately turned things around, going 21-9 in his first season with a team comprised of players that went 9-21 the previous year and swept the season series with Lambuth for the first time since the 1981-82 season.  The following season didn't turn out to be quite as good with a 15-16 record on the heels of the unexpected loss of the team's leading scorer before the season.  From that point on, however, the Lady Lions have been among the top programs in the NAIA.

In his third season, FHU surprised everyone by going 26-11 and making the NAIA National Tournament for the first time in school history.  During that season, the Lady Lions beat Lipscomb for the first time since 1987.  Two years later, FHU made a Cinderella run to the NAIA Fab Four before bowing out to eventual national champion Oklahoma City.  Then came the conference championships in 2004, 2005, and 2006 that were part of a four-year stretch where FHU won an amazing 123 games, followed by a return trip to the Fab Four in 2008.

Last week, despite having an 8-1 record, the Lady Lions went from No. 6 to No. 7 in the first in-season NAIA poll.  Having a conversation with my friend and avid FHU follower Kirk Dauksch right around that time, we were somewhat bemoaning the fact that we were going to fall a spot despite a very good start.  And that's when I realized how far this program has come since Neal's arrival.

There we were, actually a bit upset by the fact that we were going to be ranked No. 7 in the country.  Not the conference.  The country.  Fifteen years ago, the thought of being ranked - much less being in the top 10 - wasn't something that crossed the minds of anyone, perhaps outside of Neal and the players he was building around.  Now, after 26 straight polls where FHU has been ranked in the top 10, it's become old hat, almost expected for us to be there.

Here's hoping that none of us end up taking that for granted.

The new NAIA rankings came out yesterday and both the Lion and Lady Lion teams stayed near their spots in the pre-season poll, with the Lions moving up two spots to No. 16 and the Lady Lions dropping one spot to No. 7.

The women's poll was a tough one to figure out going into the day of the ranking release, largely because both the pre-season No. 1 and No. 2 suffered a loss, but both were against highly ranked teams.  No. 1 Union lost on a neutral court to No. 7 St. Xavier, while No. 2 Vanguard lost on the road to No. 4 Point Loma Nazarene for their only losses of the season.  Aside from the two schools pulling the upsets, every other team in the pre-season top 10 took at least one loss and most of them had exactly one loss.

That's a large reason why the Lady Lions went from No. 6 to No. 7 despite bringing an 8-1 record to the table with four wins over preseason top 25 teams.  FHU's lone loss came on the road to then-No. 14 Columbia and probably looked pretty bad to the raters since the final score was 85-60.  Whether or not the margin of defeat played a part in the drop, who knows?  But it would have been difficult for any of the five teams that started the season above the Lady Lions to move below them, and after St. Xavier's 10-0 start (including the Union upset) it was also impossible for the Lady Cougars to not jump a few spots.

While the women's poll had little movement top-to-bottom, the men's poll was the exact opposite.  The Lions' strength of schedule surely played a part in their two-spot jump despite having three losses, since FHU posted a 4-2 record against teams in the preseason top 25.  The number of teams that fell out of the top 25 from the initial poll also could have been a factor.  Eight teams from the preseason poll fell out of the top 25, while seven others moved up or down at least five spots in the new poll.  A lot more movement on the men's side, but that is typical.

The Lions' opponent for Friday is one of the eight teams that dropped from the top 25 - preseason No. 13 Lee University.  FHU beat Lee, 90-86 in double overtime, earlier this season at Lee.  The Flames, a perenniel national tournament team, will no doubt be coming to the Sports Center with something to prove this weekend.

In fact, if you have the afternoon off on Friday, you can see both teams in action.  The Lady Lions play Lane College in McKenzie at 2:00 in Bethel's classic, and the Lions tip their game off at 6:00 PM.