The Hillsdale College men’s basketball team saw their season come to an end with a tough loss to the University of Indianapolis in the first round of the NCAA Division II basketball tournament March 10. The Chargers fell to the Hounds 66-62 in a frantic final minute of play.
With a minute to go, the Chargers were down by only one point after senior point guard Brad Guinane hit a jumper to cut the lead to 63-62.
The Hounds star point guard Adrian Moss brought the ball up and missed a jumper towards the end of the thirty-five second shot clock. But to the dismay of the Chargers, Indianapolis forward Leland Brown grabbed the rebound and Hillsdale sophomore guard Brandon Pritzl was forced to foul him with 16 seconds to play.
Brown sank the two free throws to stretch the margin to three. The Chargers tried desperately to get a man open for a three-point shot, but the Indianapolis defense left senior point guard Tyler Gerber with only a desperate layup attempt that didn’t fall. Moss grabbed the rebound for Indianapolis and split his free throws, and the four-point margin stood despite last second desperation jumpers from Gerber and Guinane.
The game was a tale of two halves.
In the first, the Chargers got off to a good start, actually taking the lead twice, but the Hounds shot an outstanding 58 percent from the field, while the Chargers only made 46 percent of their shots.
At halftime, Hillsdale left the court down 38-29 and upon returning to the floor, the team concentrated on playing better defense and slowing down Indianapolis. The team did shoot better than the Hounds in the second half but still only made 34 percent of their shots and made only one of the 11 3-pointers they attempted.
Despite struggling on offense in the second, Indianapolis managed to control the Chargers and kept the lead the entire second half. Hillsdale was paced by Guinane’s 19 points and eight rebounds, as well as Gerber’s contributions of 14 points, three assists, three steals, and a blocked shot. In the end, the Chargers simply ran out of time to continue their comeback.
“It’s really disappointing. We still know that we’re the better team, but we turned it over too much in the first half and put ourselves in a hole,” junior center Nick Washburn said. “We’ve got a lot of good players coming back next year, and we had a great season, but this is devastating because this was our year.
“No one is satisfied with the outcome right now. We all wanted to accomplish more.”
Elsewhere in the tournament, regional No. 1 seed Bellarmine University defeated the only other GLIAC team in the tournament, the University of Findlay, and then beat the seventh-seeded Kentucky Wesleyan College to take the regional and advance to the Elite 8. Bellarmine is the defending national champion.
The Chargers closed the season with a 24-6 overall record and a GLIAC regular season title.
“It’s a rare event when an athlete gets to close out his career with a win, so I can’t be too bitter about the loss,” Guinane said. “But thinking back on this season, I’ll always remember the great teammates that I had, and the championship that we won was a special memory.”
Despite losing a class of six seniors to graduation, the Chargers will return several key contributors from this years’ team. Washburn will return for his senior season joined by fellow starter Pritzl. Bench players who played large roles on this season’s squad include sophomores guard Darius Ware, forward Tony Nelson, and big man Tim Dezelski. Backup point guard freshman Cody Smith will enter his sophomore year with big shoes to fill in replacing Gerber, and junior forward Ryan Choiniere will provide experience on the wing.
“People are going to doubt us next year, but we’ve definitely got the talent to have another solid season. We’re going to have the same mentality and look to accomplish the same goals as this year,” Dezelski said.
