After a tough stretch of road games, the Hillsdale College men’s basketball team is finally coming home.
Playing their first games against GLIAC competition this season, the Chargers fell short against the No. 2 Saginaw Valley Cardinals 74-70 on Dec. 1 and struggled in a 76-55 loss to the Wayne State Warriors on Saturday. The Chargers have lost four of their past five games — all on the road — to drop to 4-4 overall and 0-2 in GLIAC play.
Tonight, the Chargers will try to snap their three-game losing streak and pick up their first GLIAC win of the year against the Grand Valley Lakers. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. at Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena.
“It’s going to be nice to be back home and hopefully that’ll help us get things going,” sophomore point guard Nate Neveau said. “We’re going to need to come out and play as hard as we can.”
Facing Saginaw Valley, the Chargers showed they can hold their own against the best teams in the country. Facing Wayne State, the Chargers learned they have to approach every game as if they’re facing the best team in the country to be successful.
“The GLIAC night in and night out is competitive, and there’s no game you can go into without having the same edge you attack every game with,” Neveau said. “Every night is going to be a battle and we have to come ready to play every night.”
Hillsdale had that intensity against the Cardinals, shooting 56 percent in the first half to take a 36-31 halftime lead. Junior guard Stedman Lowry made all three of his 3-point attempts in the opening period.
“We played really hard, and in the first half in particular we executed really, really well,” head coach John Tharp said.
But in the second half, the Cardinals shot 67 percent from the floor. Saginaw Valley forward C.J. Turnage scored 12 points in the second half alone on 6-of-9 shooting and gave Hillsdale’s defense fits.
“Turnage had a good game. He’s just a monster, so he was tough to stop,” Lowry said.
Tharp said the Chargers were unable to double team Turnage because he plays well off the bounce and he’d get the ball in the middle of the floor. As a result, the Chargers weren’t able to close the gaps and control his penetration.
Despite their defensive struggles in the second half, the Chargers trailed by just one with under two minutes remaining. But Cardinals guard Garrett Hall converted an and-one with 1:47 remaining and guard Mike Wells made a layup with 56 seconds remaining to put the Cardinals up by 6. The Chargers were forced to foul down the stretch, and Hall made 5-of-6 free throws to seal the win.
“They made some winning plays and we didn’t,” Tharp said. “To beat the number two team in the country on their home floor, you’ve got to have some things that go your way but we didn’t.”
The Chargers shot 51 percent from the field and 41 percent from beyond the arc, but the Cardinals shot 55 percent. Saginaw Valley made 14 of their 20 free throw attempts while Hillsdale shot just 4 and made 3.
In a 4-point game, those trips to the free-throw line can be the difference.
“That was huge. We were a little finesse and we didn’t get downhill,” Tharp said.
Despite the loss, Tharp said he was pleased with how Hillsdale competed against the No. 2 team in the nation. The Chargers know they can play against anyone.
“We were right there,” Lowry said. “We know from that that we can play with anybody, so there’s some good things we can take out of it.”
But against Wayne State on Saturday, the Chargers didn’t look like a team that nearly knocked off the No. 2 team in the nation on the road. The Chargers shot just 37 percent from the field and committed 17 turnovers while allowing the Warriors to shoot 55 percent.
“It was a frustrating game for all of us,” Tharp sad. ‘We were all really disappointed in how we played and to be honest I think it was the first time this year where we walked out of there as a staff and we were upset with our overall effort.”
Wayne State’s physicality overwhelmed Hillsdale’s motion offense. Just two players hit double figures in scoring and just one player shot above 50 percent from the floor.
“Our timing was off of how we run offense. We didn’t screen and cut at a high level,” Tharp said. “They were incredibly physical in our cutters and our screeners and we couldn’t get by them off the dribble.”
After almost upsetting Saginaw Valley, Saturday’s lopsided loss served as a wakeup call for the Chargers and a reminder that any team in the GLIAC can beat any other team on any night.
“It just opened our eyes,” Lowry said. “You lose a game like that and you think, ‘Alright, we’ve got to get back to work. It’s time to go.’ So hopefully we all respond.”
The Chargers will need to play with that intensity tonight against Grand Valley as they seek their first conference win.
“We never really like Grand Valley,” Lowry said. “They’ll be physical, so it’s never an easy game against Grand Valley, but hopefully we can get fired up and I think we can beat them.”