For the first time in four years, the Hillsdale College men’s basketball team will compete in the GLIAC’s final four.
Six different Chargers scored in double figures as Hillsdale defeated the Lake Superior State Lakers 97-73 on Tuesday night in the opening round of the GLIAC Tournament to set up a semifinal clash with the Walsh Cavaliers on Saturday night.
The Chargers scored 97 points — their highest scoring output against a GLIAC opponent this season — and yet no player scored 20 or more points.
“It was a total team effort,” said senior forward Kyle Cooper, who recorded a double-double with 19 points and 15 rebounds. “It was a just a lot of guys doing a lot of things really well.”
In the first half, redshirt freshman point guard Nate Neveau kept Hillsdale in the game after the Chargers fell behind early. The Lakers led 18-6 with 13:20 left in the first half, but Neveau made two quick 3-pointers to cut the deficit in half. The Lakers re-extended their lead to double digits with 8:58 to go in the opening period, but another Neveau 3-pointer kickstarted a 10-0 Chargers run to tie things up at 28-28. Neveau finished the game with 17 points off the bench.
“Neveau hit some really big shots early in that game that just settled us,” head coach John Tharp said. “It really became just a team effort after that.”
After coming back from a 12-point deficit, the Chargers took a 35-34 lead into halftime. Tharp credited the Chargers’ “mental” toughness for their ability to climb back into the game right away, unlike on Feb. 6 when the Chargers suffered their worst loss of the season at Lake Superior State.
“Our group wasn’t going to let it happen again like the last time that we were up there,” Tharp said. “We’re just a different team mentally right now. We’re a confident group.”
Hillsdale outscored the Lakers 62-39 in the second half to run away with the game, shooting 62 percent to the Lakers’ 48 percent.
“Good defense turns into good offense,” Cooper said. “When we get stops it allows us to get out running in transition a little bit and then their defense is scrambling.”
The Lakers scored the first four points of the second half before the Chargers went on a 16-4 run to take the lead for good. Senior center Jason Pretzer scored 14 of his 18 points during the run, sinking four 3-pointers in a span of three minutes.
“I’m really proud of Jason doing that. That’s what you need to do on the road in March,” Tharp said.
After Pretzer broke open the game, the Chargers continued to build their advantage until the final buzzer sounded.
“It was like that open gym kind of feel because shots that necessarily weren’t falling in the first half, in the second half it was the complete opposite,” senior point guard Zach Miller said. “The thing was though that we were getting stops.”
While Neveau and Pretzer scored in spurts, Miller did a bit of everything throughout the contest. Miller tied Cooper with a team-high 19 points, but it was his game-high 14 assists that made the biggest difference, prompting Tharp to say his point guard played a “beautiful game.”
“It definitely helps when guys are making shots. There are so many good shooters and good players around me that it’s fun passing,” Miller said.
Tharp was happy with the way his seniors played.
“Our seniors Jason Pretzer, Zach Miller, and Kyle Cooper just played a tremendous game,” Tharp said. “That’s what you need to do on the road in March. Your veterans have got to really step up and make plays, and they did.”
The Chargers will look to win their seventh game in a row and advance to the GLIAC championship game when they face the eighth-seed Walsh Cavaliers — who upset first-seed Saginaw Valley on Tuesday night — at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday night in Ashland, Ohio. Walsh ranks fifth in the GLIAC in scoring and are led by guard Jesse Hardin Jr. who is averaging 20.7 points per game on 47 percent field goal shooting.
“Jesse Hardin is one of the great D-II players in the country,” Tharp said. “Unfortunately, he can go get 50 on you, so we’re trying to figure that out right now. But at the same time we’ve just got to play within our own skin and be who we are and hope that things that we’ve been doing of late will be good enough for us to continue this.”
The Chargers are confident that they can get the job done.
“There’s just something about March, it’s a different kind of feel, playing, going to practice, going to the games,” Miller said. “We’ve got this thing rolling right now where nobody wants to play us, and I think that’s around the conference and around the region. Everybody knows we’re coming.”
