The Hillsdale College men’s basketball team tipped off their regular season last week, but it didn’t take any time for forward Kyle Cooper to find his midseason form.
Cooper scored 72 points over the Chargers’ first two games, leading Hillsdale to two consecutive victories and earning himself GLIAC North Division Player of the Week honors.
“Guys on my team like Zach [Miller] and Nate [Neveau] and [Nick] Arch[er] and my other teammates did a good job of finding me in open spots,” Cooper said on his strong performances. “If they give me the ball in the right spots I can get it in the hoop and it’s good for the team.”
Cooper scored 41 points to go along with 15 rebounds in Hillsdale’s season opener at Cedarville, leading the Chargers to an 84-76 win. Both totals were career highs for Cooper, and the 41 point performance was the first by a Charger since Tony Gugino put up 41 in a victory over Wayne State in 2008.
“Kyle was fantastic,” head coach John Tharp said. “He just took over the game on both ends of the floor offensively and defensively.”
Minus Cooper’s performance, the Chargers’ win at Cedarville was an odd game. Hillsdale committed 22 turnovers, but were able to overcome their sloppy play thanks to some key stops down the stretch and 50 percent field goal shooting.
“It was a very helter-skelter game,” Tharp said. “It was one of those games where they didn’t allow us to do what we wanted to do so you’ve got to give Cedarville credit.”
Cedarville jumped out to a 26-16 lead at the start of the game before the Chargers responded to come back and take the lead before halftime.
“I thought we didn’t actually play very good basketball,” Cooper said. “We did a better job of settling down in the second half.”
On Saturday, the Chargers routed Salem International 78-54 in their first game in the newly renovated Dawn Tibbets Potter Arena.
Hillsdale entered halftime up by just eight before clamping down on defense in the second half, holding Salem to 23 second half points.
“We didn’t really make many [halftime adjustments], we just talked about tightening up some of the things we weren’t doing as well,” Tharp said. “Our guys showed a tremendous amount of pride just in one-on-one guarding the basketball and they were locked in.”
Cooper shined again, following up his 41-15 performance with 31 points and 13 rebounds.
Backup center Jason Pretzer also played a key role in the victory.
“Pretzer played tremendous,” Tharp said. “He really protected the paint for us.”
Pretzer played 22 minutes off the bench, scoring 14 points on 4-5 shooting from the field and 6-7 shooting from the stripe, in addition to grabbing eight rebounds and dishing out five assists.
“I guess sometimes you’re just in the zone,” Pretzer said on his strong performance. “A lot of it too just came down to the way we prepared.”
Pretzer also had a big impact on the defensive end, helping the Chargers hold a Salem International team that came in averaging 94 points to just 54 points.
Tonight, the Chargers open up their GLIAC schedule on the road at Tiffin before travelling to Ohio Dominican on Saturday for another tough GLIAC matchup.
“Tiffin is incredibly athletic and incredibly gifted offensively,” Tharp said. “We’ve been talking to our guys about the mentality of just do what you’re supposed to do, it doesn’t matter who the opponent is or where we’re playing.”
The Chargers will be looking for some revenge.
“They’re both teams that we lost to on the road last year,” Cooper said. “We beat them at home but we weren’t able to take it on the road so we want to start off on a good note and win both games.”
While the Chargers are depending on more strong performances by Cooper, they are hoping that someone else will step up as well, like Pretzer did on Saturday.
“We’re not sure exactly of everything in our rotations,” Tharp said. “It’s going to be different guys on different nights.”
It won’t be easy, but the Chargers know that two big road wins would provide an important foundation in the always tough GLIAC North Division.