Well now that the season is over and I've been able to cool off a little after ending the season on a tough note, I've decided that I should talk about the season as a whole. After having a successful trip to Greece at the beginning of summer, it definitely opened my eyes on what we were going to be able to do minus the three seniors from the 09-10 season, Nick Carroll, Dan Andersen, and Ray Brown.
We opened up our season with 19 guys on the team with one senior, four juniors, and everyone else sophomores and freshmen. We never really knew what we were going to get. We could have won eight games or 18 games and we could've called it a successful season. There were just too many unanswered questions as the season began. Who was going to be our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th scorer? One thing we did know was that Carl Hipp was going to have a successful senior year. We didn't know how successful but we were definitely expected him to lead us throughout the year.
We opened up our year with a couple of scrimmages and an exhibition game. One thing we found out after those scrimmages was that we could play with some really good teams as well as play down to some average teams. Not exactly what we wanted but good teams are usually dominated by upperclassmen and we had very few.
As the real games started, we found out that we could really grind out games with our defense. Our offense was really struggling at the beginning of the year and our defense was keeping us in games. It certainly didn't help that our first four games were on the road against good opponents. The warm (really warm, sometimes) friendly confines of Hutton Arena was essentially just a practice gym for us.
Our second home game of the year vs. Augsburg seemed to kick start our offense as we scored 102 in an overtime "W." This win not only kicked started our offense, but it gave a bunch of guys confidence to become one of the highest scoring teams in division three basketball. The Augsburg game also showed a lot of our deficiencies on the defensive end, which were continually exposed throughout the rest of the season.
Once the "second" half of the year got going, we put together an 11-3 stretch where our offense was really clicking. We were getting great movement and a lot of penetration on top of getting Carl the ball inside. We showed what we were capable of in many of those games. Our "spurtability" made us a really tough team to play against. We could get a little 7-0 run at any point of the game and get us right back in the game or the put the team away. As time progresses and we get stronger as a whole, those runs will become more frequent and higher scoring.
The direction of the program is headed the way we wanted. As a stated above, we had no idea how many wins we would have, as a player or coach, I think you are always wanting more. If you look at a bunch of games that we lost, they were close ones, and we probably could've won each one of those games by defending a little better, getting a single loose ball, getting another rebound, or making a single free throw. We were right there for a chance at an NCAA tournament bid, we didn't quite make it. That's basketball for you. What do we need to do to get that loose ball, grab that rebound, or make that free throw?
We finished the season at 16-11 and 13-7 in the conference. We made it to the playoffs for the second consecutive year and hosted a playoff game for the first time in over 25 years. Carl was named MVP, the first Hamline player to be named MVP in I don't know how long. Talent level has increased significantly over the past couple of years. Look for it to get even better next season. Next stop, NCAA Tournament.
Thanks for everyone viewing the blog, I had over a 1,000 hits last month. I'll have some more great news about Hamline athletics next week as the news becomes public. This news will definitely bring Hamline Athletics to the forefront of the MIAC. Hopefully, as time goes on this becomes to norm, which I think it will with the great coaching staff we have on the corner of Snelling and Hewitt.
Good luck to our Men's Hockey team tomorrow night as they take on the Concordia Cobbers in the MIAC Championship game at Warner Coliseum at the State Fairgrounds. Here is a LINK to the game if you want to watch.
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