By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

The record, Chad Boudreau said, is convincing evidence.

Western Illinois’ men’s basketball team went 21-12 this season, the Leathernecks’ first 20-win season since 2013, in Boudreau’s first season as head coach after being the associate head coach for the last three seasons.

It’s a record that is impressive in different ways, given the uncertainties surrounding the team in the spring. The Leathernecks were coming off a second consecutive 16-win season and were losing Trenton Massner, a first-team All-Summit League selection last season. They were also moving from the Summit League to the Ohio Valley Conference, and Boudreau had some roster reconstruction ahead.

That’s why, after Friday’s loss to Little Rock in the OVC tournament semifinals, Boudreau acknowledged Jesiah West and Quinlan Bennett, two of his departing seniors who were sitting next to him in the post-game press conference, then pondered the final record.

“Twenty-one and twelve, when everyone was telling us we lost everything, we lost our scoring, we lost our best player, when people are saying we lost the best player to ever play here, these guys stepped up and had a better season,” Boudreau said. “Twenty-one and twelve, that’s impressive.”

There is the psychological effect that goes with a 20-win season — it’s the sign of a program heading the right direction. It was not an easy season — the Leathernecks started 3-6 as Boudreau experimented with all sorts of rotation combinations, then went 18-6 the rest of the way, finishing a game out of first place in the OVC standings.

Repeating that success, and then building on it, is something that doesn’t concern Boudreau, even though he’s losing four of the five players who started the final game.

His plan is to use the same approach he had last spring, one that he was successful with as a coach at the junior-college level, when rosters turned over every season.

“With my junior-college background, my two year background, I think you can turn things on a dime,” Boudreau said. “We turned this on a dime, and we want to keep it going in the right direction.”

Mid-major programs can’t develop through just high school players anymore in the era of the NCAA’s transfer portal. The hidden talents that coaches can find and develop are usually going to be poached by the bigger schools at some point.

What Boudreau wants to do is similar to this season’s plan — find experienced junior-college players, and look to the transfer portal for experienced players at not just the Division I level, but Division II and III as well.

“Everybody thought we had a lot to replace last year,” Boudreau said. “In junior college, it was always reloading. It’s not a rebuild, it’s just reloading. Stockpile talent, and then we’ll just run it back. That’s what we’re going to do.”

Boudreau has confidence in his staff, given the experience he and his assistants have at coaching at all levels.

“We know we can get players from anywhere,” Boudreau said. “Those guys (associate head coach Kyle Heikkinen and assistants Chris Hill and John Clancy) are recruiters. So am I. All four of us are headhunters. So we’re going to go out and we need to get more depth. We need to be more physical. We need to be more physical at the guard spots, we need to be more physical at the forward sports. And we’ve got to have the depth.”

Boudreau learned a lot about the OVC in this first season.

“I’ve said it quite a bit — we built his team (last spring) for the Summit (League). I thought we’d be in the Summit,” Boudreau said. “We play faster, a little more athletic. You guys have all seen it over the years — leagues change quickly.

“We come over to this league and the talent level across the board on the top teams is better. It’s elite. It’s better this year, anyway. So it’s an exciting time. It’s an exciting time for the league. We know after going through it for a year how we need to play, how we need to build a team differently.  We talked about it since the second week of January as a coaching staff — we have to adapt to how the game is played, how the games are called. It’s different. It’s a lot different. And so we’re going to adapt.”

Boudreau does have a foundation on the roster. Guard Ryan Myers was a second-team all-conference pick. Center Tay Knox played significant minutes, and forward Rodrick Payne, who redshirted this season, is expected to play a key frontcourt role.

“I feel good about us up front, and Ryan was an all-league guard, so getting him back is going to be important,” Boudreau said. “To have that kind of core back is a good thing.”

The Leathernecks were one of the nation’s best rebounding teams this season — they rank fourth in rebounds per game, fifth in offensive rebounds per game, and 11th in rebound margin. Boudreau wants to keep that physicality, but he knows there must be offensive improvement as well — Western Illinois ranked 278th in field-goal percentage, 284th in 3-point percentage and 349th out of 351 teams in free-throw percentage.

There are minutes to sell to recruits. The four departing starters — Bennett, West, JJ Kalakon and Drew Cisse — averaged 25 minutes or more.

“I’m not really worried about it, to be honest,” Boudreau said. “We’re just going to go out, and find more players.”

It’s a philosophy that the record shows can work.

“I like it,” Boudreau said. “I love every second of it. It’s just like junior college. We’ve got to go reload, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Photo: Western Illinois guard Ryan Myers (left) was a second-team All-OVC pick this season. (Photo courtesy of WIU Athletic Communications)