It’s a team that has averaged 102 points a game since Christmas, but it’s built around defense, not offense.

Its stars are a 5-foot-8 kid from Thomasville, whom no one recruited, and a 6-6 guy from Yugoslavia, whom even Falcon coach Dave Davis never imagined would emerge as a star.

It is a team that has no players over 6-6, but yells “Rebound” in unison each time it breaks a huddle.

It is a team that was literally nonexistent four years ago when Davis was hired, but now stands undefeated a dozen games into its Carolinas-Virginia Athletic Conference schedule.

It is a small-town team whose players hang together after games and munch pizza and watch the Division I guys play on ESPN. But it is also a team that has hoop dreams as big as the sky.

“Our goal’s the national championship,” says Terrence Baxter, the former Thomasville waterbug who makes it all happen for Davis. “If we can keep up the intensity, keep playing defense like we are now, we can do it.”

No one laughs when Baxter speaks of a national championship.

The Falcons ripped apart taller CVAC rival Mount Olive 127-93 on Thursday for their 11th straight win. They haven’t lost since the calendar turned to 2000 and are ranked 19th nationally and second in the region.

The Falcons, in other words, are geared for a return to the glory days of Bobby Lutz. Days of six straight conference crowns, three Final Four NAIAappearances and a No.2 finish nationally in 1995.

The roots of the team’s current 18-3 mark can be traced to some prudent decisions Davis made when he took charge of a program in 1996 that boasted all of one player. Davis got in late on the recruiting trail, but was both good and lucky.

The relentless redhead made a sales pitch to the overlooked Baxter, who was all set to go play at Forsyth Tech. He got him. Then he landed Yugoslavian project Nem Sovic and 6-2 Spindale guard Emory Smith, who was waiting for offers. Then, with an eye on the future, he red-shirted all three.

Now, four years later, Davis is reaping the rewards and CVAC foes are caught in the whirlwind.

Smith has become a solid player, a key cog in Davis’ non-stop 10-man rotation that applies relentless defensive pressure and wears opponents to a frazzle.

Sovic is simply a scoring machine, who pours in 25 ppg. Thursday he had 21 points by halftime on his way to a 31-point night.

“Nem scores in bunches, in a hurry,” said Davis. “We’re always surprised when we see the scoresheet after the game. You never realize he’s got those kind of numbers.”

Most impressive of all, Sovic is putting up his startling stats in a mere 22 minutes per game.

Sovic is not a flashy athlete, but he is ambidextrous and has hands good enough to catch all of Baxter’s incredible passes, which come flying at him from every angle of Merner Gym. Sovic also has an arsenal of pump fakes, which make him a frequent foul-line visitor. And once there, he converts.

“You get the ball to Nem,” says Baxter, “and Nem scores. Simple as that.”

“When we brought Nem in, we never dreamed about him being this good,” said Davis, “but we could tell he was a kid who had the work ethic to improve. He loves the game and lives the game. And now ...”

And now, Sovic’s getting some extraordinary things done. He didn’t take a shot longer than 15 feet on Thursday, but connected on 12 of 16 field goals. He also hit all seven of his free throws.

Davis has a steady stream of stories about Sovic’s legendary work ethic. Sovic missed four free throws in one of Pfeiffer’s recent games. The next day, without prodding, he came to the gym and shot 500 extra foul shots.

The Falcons are pushing Sovic for All-America honors, because of his eye-catching and easily quantifiable numbers, but the glue to the team is undeniably Baxter.

Davis calls Baxter “special, incredible and tremendous,” but what the little fellow is, above all, is intense.

He has a burning desire to win and is an absolute blur on defense. He covers the entire floor and gets his hands on everything. Last night, he had 12 assists and four steals. He was also, believe it or not, Pfeiffer’s leading rebounder, with seven, simply by running balls down and scooping them off the floor.

Davis calls Baxter the “quickest man in Division II.” Mount Olive won’t argue.

“We just got really lucky to get a player like Terrence,” says Davis. “He creates so many things for us, especially on defense.”

Thursday night was a Baxter highlight reel.

He ran down Trojan guard Derrick Crumpler, who was five yards ahead of him, and took the ball from him once he got there. Disbelieving Mount Olive coach Bill Clingan did not believe the play was humanly possible and incurred a technical for screaming his displeasure.

Another time, Baxter motored downcourt with Pfeiffer leaper Dwayne Bell trailing him on a 2-on-1 break. A defender tried to grab Baxter and foul him, but he managed to send a perfect pass off the backboard to the 6-6 Bell, who flushed the ball home, sending Merner Gym into convulsions of joy.

“I heard Dwayne yelling that he was behind me,” said a grinning Baxter. “I knew I could make the play, but that’s one you’ve gotta make. I knew if I messed it up, Coach Davis would be taking me out of the game.”

But Davis rarely has cause to remove his bantam bullet. Baxter plays 30-plus minutes every night. The rest of the parts of Davis’ high-scoring machine, however, are virtually interchangeable. Even Sovic sits a lot.

Smith and 6-4 bomber Jay Moody rain 3-pointers; former North Stanly stars Dusty Mason and Eric Jackson get loose balls and run the floor; Bell, forward Tony Bailey and guard Shakil Brew are fierce defenders; and Latvian Edjis Sprude can run the show when Baxter rests.

Everyone can play. And that includes 11th man Jason Buff. Seconds after Buff’s first entry into the contest, Baxter spotted his teammate open in the corner. Buff promptly buried one of the Falcons’ 10 3-pointers.

The Falcons outrebounded the Trojans, who boast an athletic 6-9 guy, by a dozen. They forced 29 turnovers. They piled up 68 points before halftime and reached 100 points with nine minutes left.

This is a team that goes hard in games and in practice and it’s a team with tons of motivation stemming from a last-second disaster in last season’s CVAC championship game. This team has everything, in fact, except something it desperately needs. A third digit on its scoreboard. Whenever the Falcons reach 100, which happens often, the unfortunate scoreboard can only show “00.”