A mix of veteran experience and incoming talent will shape Hillsdale men’s basketball as the Chargers, picked to finish sixth in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Preseason Coaches Poll, prepare to open their season.
Hillsdale is one of the few teams in the country to bring back all of its possible returnees.
“We’ve got 12 guys coming back,” assistant coach Jackson McLaughlin said. “We graduated three from last year’s team and then got all 12 guys that could come back.”
Following the graduation of Ashton Janowski, Cole McWhinnie, and Jacob Meyer last season, the men’s basketball team brings in a young backcourt alongside a veteran-heavy frontcourt. The team has four freshmen, four sophomores, and eight upperclassmen returning.
CJ Yarian and Garrett Bolte will both return for the Chargers for a fifth year. Senior Caleb Glaser, who led the Chargers’ returning players with an average of 11.1 points per game, will also be a key contributor. Sophomore Braylon Morris is back after averaging 8.7 points per contest and leading the Chargers with a 41.2% three-point shooting percentage. The team collectively averaged 70.8 points per game, had 906 total rebounds, and 385 total assists for the season.
The Chargers finished last season with an 11-18 record overall and 8-12 in the G-MAC to conclude the season in 8th place.
“I have high hopes for this season,” sophomore John Morris said. “We have a lot of returners, and we’ve worked really hard this preseason, so I expect us to do really well this year.”
Freshmen Cade Dirkse, Cole Albers, Griffin Ridner Richard, and Leland Berg are new players joining the Charger squad this season. Albers can shoot from the perimeter, Ridner Richard is also talented working from the perimeter, and Berg is an excellent shooter, according to McLaughlin.
“Cade Dirkse does a really good job of commanding the floor, guards at a really high level, and then facilitates and gets guys open and makes open shots as well,” McLaughlin said.
For this season, defense will be a focus for the team.
“Looking back to last year, we thought we could have been a lot better defensively,” McLaughlin said. “We were able to spend a lot of spring and a lot of the fall on defensive concepts. The guys have been doing a great job guarding, keeping teams out of the paint, and keeping teams off of the three point line. With a team like us bringing back all 12 guys, you’re able to continue to roll over the culture of the expectation of being able to build on things and move forward. Those standards are already set, and our guys do a great job of rolling those over.”
The Chargers’ will kick off the season against the University of Michigan-Dearborn Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. in Dawn Tibbets Potter Arena.
