The Hillsdale College men’s basketball team continued its strong start to the year last weekend, taking down the Illinois Springfield Prairie Stars 78-69 on Friday night and shooting past the St. Joseph’s College Pumas 95-79 on Saturday night to improve to 3-0 on the young season.
The Chargers took advantage of their improved depth to defeat the Prairie Stars on Friday night. Senior forward Kyle Cooper, who leads the Chargers in scoring and rebounding, got into foul trouble early and played fewer minutes than usual. Sophomore guard Stedman Lowry uncharacteristically struggled, finishing 0-for-7 from the field. The duo combined for just 17 points, but several other Chargers stepped up.
“That was a game that last year we would have lost,” head coach John Tharp said. “That victory was a team win. We had so many different guys that contributed.”
Sophomore guard Ryan Badowski, who transferred to Hillsdale from Longwood College over the summer, led Hillsdale in scoring and rebounding with 21 points on 6-of-11 shooting and seven boards. Senior center Jason Pretzer scored 13 points on 6-of-7 shooting, and redshirt freshman guard Nate Neveau scored 12 points on 3-of-3 shooting from 3-point range.
“That’s the biggest improvement for our team this year, the increased depth we have,” Cooper said. “To have so many different weapons and being able to spread out the scoring load takes pressure off each individual guy.”
The Chargers trailed 44-40 with 16:02 remaining in the contest before rattling off a 20-9 run to take the lead for good.
After having quiet nights on Friday, Cooper and Lowry shined on Saturday night in Hillsdale’s 95-79 win over the Pumas.
Cooper scored 30 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, his second game with 30 or more points and 10 or more rebounds this season. Lowry, after missing all seven of his field goal attempts on Friday night, shot 10-of-14 from the field on Saturday behind a 6-of-9 performance from beyond the arc.
“I wanted to be aggressive but I didn’t want to force anything, and I just wanted to play in the flow of our offense,” Lowry said. “I hit some shots early and guys did a good job of getting me open and getting good shots.”
Neveau took advantage of increased minutes after starting point guard senior Zach Miller got into foul trouble. Neveau finished with 12 points and dishing out six assists.
“A lot of guys contributed good minutes,” Lowry said. “Nate Neveau came off the bench and played amazing.”
The Chargers have averaged 88.3 points per outing this season, and have shot at least 48 percent from the floor in each contest. Tharp said he is “pleased” with his team’s start to the season.
“We’re getting more easy baskets in transition which has helped us, and we’re playing a little faster. We’re more dynamic off the dribble, which is allowing some easy kickouts and dump downs,” Tharp said. “Overall we have more threats on the floor. I think people are focused on Kyle Cooper and he gets people open because of his presence and he’s played incredibly well. But as great as Kyle is playing, we’re a more well-rounded team.”
Cooper credits the Chargers’ fast start to their “inside game.”
“We’ve got a lot of guys who can score around the basket, and so that inside-out game has really been benefitting us,” Cooper said. “We get inside touches early on, score a couple easy ones around the basket, and then the defense is forced to shrink in. Once we’re in a rhythm the game opens up from outside and we start hitting our outside jump shots. We’re getting ourselves into a good flow in the game early on and it’s leading to high offensive efficiency.”
The Chargers will open their conference schedule tonight in their first home game of the season. Hillsdale will host the Tiffin University Dragons at 8 p.m. in Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena.
“Tiffin is a long, athletic, talented group that can really score the basketball,” Tharp said. “We’re focusing right now on what we need to do to get better. Obviously we’ll game plan this week but we really just try to talk about playing our style of play and not giving anything away, and not beating ourselves.”
The last time the Chargers faced the Dragons, Tiffin won 79-63.
“They did beat us last time we played them, so it’s a little personal this year,” Lowry said.
