It’s been three weeks since the Concordia College Alabama men’s basketball team had a practice, let alone played a game. Yet, Hornets coach Fredrick Summers wasn’t worried about how his team would come back from the Christmas break.

He was confident the players would come back to school in shape, ready to practice and focused on winning the school’s first men’s basketball national championship.

“We kept in touch during the break to make sure they were doing what they needed to do as far as conditioning was concerned,” Summers said. “It’s just all a matter of getting that consistency back with our rhythm offensively and getting our timing down.”

Many coaches would struggle to be away from their team for that long — 21 total days — but Summers said his team needed the break. Last year, he thought the team needed more time at Christmas, so he adjusted the schedule accordingly this year.

“In years past, I didn’t give them enough time to go home and reset and come back for the stretch run, especially last year,” Summers said. “Teams before have done well with the break but last year I don’t think we had enough time off to really get away from it, reset and get everything going.”

Players came in one or two at a time Wednesday and many knocked on Summers’ door as they made their way to the gym for their first practice of 2017. With Summers looking on from the sideline, the team got busy trying to knock off the rust from the break.

“It’s going to take a couple of practices, a couple of games to get back to that full force that we were,” said Hornets leading scoring Deangelo Anthony, who averages 21 points per game.

The Hornets are 7-2 on the season with losses to Stillman College and Faulkner University. The Hornets have won games against Wallace Community College Selma, Life University, Tougaloo College, Talladega and Pensacola University.

Summers said the team is in good shape to receive a bid to the United States Collegiate Athletic Association national championship. Eight teams will make the Division I tournament at Penn State Fayette in Pennsylvania in February.

The tournament is made up of at-large teams and strength of schedule is one of the biggest factors.

Because of that, Summers always tries to schedule tough opponents from the NAIA and NCAA, although he’s had a tough time doing that in recent years.

Concordia stunned Alcorn State in 2014, a Division I NCAA team, and Summers said many schools won’t play them now.

“We beat Alcorn State in 2014 and for two years I cannot find one Division I team would even play us now and before then, they were beating my door down to get games with us,” Summers said.

Of course, Concordia hasn’t been a slouch the last few years either.  Last year, Concordia finished as the tournament runner-ups, falling just short of the national title. Summers said the goal is to get back and make school history by winning the program’s first men’s title.

“That’s the only goal that we have is we want to compete for national titles,” Summers said. “In order to compete for national titles, you have to win one game at a time, step-by-step.”

Concordia has had to play a different brand of basketball this year without a consistent scoring threat inside. The team has adjusted by making 49.5 percent of its 3-point attempts, but Summers is hoping the return of Dennis Miles, who sat out the first semester, will help the Hornets out inside.

From looking at the statsheet, one thing is clear — Concordia is getting contributions from everywhere. Tavin Cummings is second on the team in scoring at 17 points per game and Thurley Love, who has had to adjust to playing inside, is averaging 12 per game.

Love is also leading the USCAA in field goal percentage.

The Hornets will play Saturday at Barber-Scotia and will play its first home game of 2017 on Jan. 11 against North American University.