I arrived late to Air Force’s morning shootaround at the Thomas and Mack Center today. I was on the conference call about the Mountain West Conference’s proposal to change the BCS (which you can read about several posts below this one).

Anyway, there were about 10 or so minutes left when I arrived, and I was shocked when I got there.

Because players were smiling.

This has been a team (and a set of coaches) that has looked defeated for most of conference play. At the previous shootarounds I’ve attended, it seemed like Jeff Reynolds constantly was correcting and yelling at his players. And the players looked down. (I’ve heard similar reports from people about practices).

So I was taken aback a bit to see all the smiles. And even some good-natured trash talking while the team (split into two groups) was holding a free throw contest.

Then, when the contest was over and before the team left, players shot around on their own. And again there were smiles as some shot seriously and some hoisted half-court shots. Assistants were chatting with players, players were joking.

It might not seem like much, but I left feeling like I might see one of the team’s best efforts later in the day. And I think I did.

Now, I can’t be sure that there’s that much of a carry-over from practices/shootarounds to games. But it seems to me that a happier team is a more confident team. And a more confident team is a better team.

“We’ve tried to do a better job as a coaching staff of limiting our practice time and allowing these kids to try to have some fun,” Reynolds said after the Falcons’ 46-43 loss to UNLV.

It’s good to see. I bet Air Force fans wish they would have seen it a lot earlier in the season.

Other thoughts:

-When UNLV’s Wink Adams scored with 8:15 left tonight to give the Runnin’ Rebels a 41-29 lead, I started to write some portions of my game story – fully expecting another double-digit loss in which the Falcons seemed in it for a while but folded.

Andrew Henke intervened.

The senior had one of those flurries like Reggie Miller used to have with the Indiana Pacers. He started making shots from everywhere, seemingly willing his team to a victory. He made a free throw, missed the second but got the ball back and banged a 3. Two possessions later he banged another. Then on the next possession he drilled a deep pull-up, and Air Force was trailing UNLV by two with less than a minute to play.

As one would expect this season, however, it didn’t end well. UNLV’s Wink Adams forced his way to the hoop for a bucket, and on Air Force’s next possession, Matt Holland missed a pair of 3s. Ball game.

But Henke’s been on fire lately. He’s scored in double-figures in each of Air Force’s last six games and averaged 20.0 points in that stretch. In those six games Henke has made 40-of-78 shots from the floor, including 21-of-42 from 3-point range.

Too little too late to push him onto, say, third-team All-MWC? Probably. But it’s quite a run, nonetheless.

-I wrote about Trevor Noonan in my notebook, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but I thought he played extremely well tonight. Noonan said he’s caught a second wind and now knows two positions (power forward and center) well so he just plays instead of thinking his way through games.

It shows. I think he might be the most talented of the freshmen, and if he stays (a big if), he could be the centerpiece of some future squads.

-I’m starting to warm up to the idea that this might indeed by the best the MWC ever has been. Five teams have 20 victories this season.

-Liked the post move Taylor Stewart made on Air Force’s second possession of the second half. Would like to see more moves like that.

-Scary stat that I put in my game notes but that deserves to be repeated: Air Force’s 19-11 lead late in the first half was its largest advantage in 15 Mountain West Conference games this year.

-And to close tonight’s post … for those who think things couldn’t get worse for the men’s basketball team, consider this: The Air Force women’s team led UNLV by 22 points with 10:05 left in the second half tonight. And lost, 64-63. UNLV’s women ended the game on a 30-7 run. Ouch.

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