The Hillsdale College men’s basketball team finished an exhausting three-game weekend 1-2, dropping to 12-7 overall and 8-7 in the GLIAC.
After suffering their first home defeat of the season in a 79-69 loss to the Ferris State Bulldogs on Jan. 28, the Chargers shut down the Grand Valley State Lakers in Allendale 76-63 on Saturday afternoon. But Hillsdale was unable to grab another win on Monday night, coming up just short against the GLIAC-leading No. 21 Saginaw Valley Cardinals 72-69.
The Chargers’ win at Grand Valley on Saturday snapped their 3-game losing streak. Head coach John Tharp attributed the win to the Chargers’ “best defensive effort as a group” of the season.
“We really played well on both ends of the floor,” Tharp said. “We showed a tremendous amount of toughness and character, and it was a great road win.”
The Chargers held the Lakers to just 33-percent field goal shooting 22-percent shooting from 3-point range. Grand Valley fought back from a double-digit deficit to take a 43-39 lead early in the second half, but the Chargers rattled off a 13-0 run to retake control of the game.
“As long as we keep battling on the boards and we play that kind of team defense, then we can be a hard team to score on,” senior forward Kyle Cooper said.
Five Chargers scored in double figures in the win, including junior forward Nick Archer, who scored 10 points off the bench.
“Nick Archer has been great for us. It’s the Nick Archer that we had all fall until he hurt his knee at Toledo,” Tharp said. “We’re really seeing him now play the way that he really was playing all fall and at the beginning of practice, so he’s been huge for us.”
After their best defensive performance of the season on Saturday, the Chargers struggled to stop Saginaw Valley in the first half on Monday night.
The Cardinals shot 70 percent from the 3-point line and 61 percent from the field in the opening period to jump out to a 43-35 halftime advantage. Saginaw Valley led by as many as 10 in the second half before the Chargers fought back to take a brief lead, but the Cardinals recovered and held off Hillsdale down the stretch.
“We weren’t good enough in the first half on defense, and it came back to bite us,” said Cooper, who led the Chargers with 26 points and 15 rebounds and is the only player in the GLIAC averaging a double-double per game. “We can’t give up 43 points in the first half and expect to win many games.”
Hillsdale utilized a 15-4 run to take a 55-54 lead before the Cardinals responded. Redshirt freshman point guard Nate Neveau played a key role off the bench in the comeback, attacking the basket and getting to the free-throw line.
“We were able to try to get downhill and get to the line, and I thought we were able to have some success doing that,” Neveau said. “When teams key in on Cooper so much it opens up things for some of the rest of us.”
Neveau finished the game with nine points off the bench. Seven of those nine points came from the free-throw line.
“Nate Neveau is a great competitor and really helps us because he can beat guys off the dribble and get to the rim, and is a very good defender,” Tharp said. “We’re better off when we are attacking.”
The Chargers gave themselves an opportunity to win down the stretch, but like on Jan. 28 against Ferris State, they were unable to pull it out.
“The majority of the issues that we’re having is our overall defense. Our offense has been good enough to win basketball games, but as I told them after the game, we’ve got to keep our heads up and keep battling and try to keep putting ourselves in position to win games and to get better,” Tharp said. “I feel for the kids right now, because I think we’re trying but we’re just not being as good as we need to be.”
Continuing their stretch of five games in 10 days, the Chargers will face the Northwood Timberwolves on the road tonight at 8 p.m. before heading to the Upper Peninsula to take on the Lake Superior State Lakers on Saturday at 3 p.m.
Tharp gave his players the day off on Tuesday before getting back to work yesterday.
“We gave them the day off because we think that the mental and physical rest is needed,” Tharp said. “With this type of nine days that we’ve had, you’ve got to correct as much as you possibly can but your focus has to be on yourself and what’s the job at hand.”
“Every game in the GLIAC is a battle, so we’ll just get mentally prepared and when we get out there, we’ll do what we can do and hopefully we can come out with two wins this weekend,” Neveau said.