Well, here it comes. I was hoping to write this post a couple of weeks from now. Obviously, I'm not. It still stings a bit talking about it. That's the way it goes when you don't take care of business when you need to.
Going into the year, I thought we would be a playoff team with the ability to finish in the upper third of the conference. I figured we would be above .500 overall and finish anywhere from 11-9 to 13-7 in conference. I thought we had a veteran group that knew what we expected out of them on top of having a very talented incoming class. It was the first time that we've had a group of juniors and seniors that had been through the rigors of the MIAC play a bunch of times. It was the first time that we could say that since our staff has been at Hamline.
The season got off to a decent start as we beat Northwestern in a game that they dominated the tempo. We looked really good at points and then really bad. It was clearly a sign to come. The next four games were a disaster as we dug ourselves huge holes and couldn't quite dig ourselves out of them. There were flashes of being a really good team and then we would go off on our own little tangent that would cost us games. We were having too many ups and downs and not enough playing steady.
We got going again after our St. Thomas game. We looked like a whole new team. We were playing hard and really getting after it. It was refreshing to watch. It was a different team than what we had over the previous five games. We did make some changes with our lineup as well and I'm sure that made some difference.
Right after the Christmas break we headed out to San Diego for our "California Trip." It was a great trip for us as we got to see a bunch of California as well as bonding time for our kids. Looking back on it now, we should've played another game. Seven days is too long to be in a place while only playing one game. For many of us (players and coaches) it seemed like more of a vacation than a "business" trip. It clearly cost us when we played Chapman. They were we ready and we were back to playing bad basketball. It was a frustrating ending to an overall good trip.
Once we got back, we had a few practices and it seemed like every other game we decided to play hard. It was frustrating for everyone involved. We'd try some different things in practice to get them going and it would work for a few days and then we would got back to not competing and not playing hard. Just an up and down stretch for everyone involved.
Before the second half of the conference season started. Nelson and I sat down in the office and figured that 11 wins would get a team into the playoffs. It looked like a good number considering where everyone in the league stood at the moment. We went into that stretch with high expectations. We were battling the top three teams in the conference for a chance to move up in the rankings and potentially become a top seed for the conference playoffs. Something that hasn't been done here in a LONG time. We faltered in each one of these games. Even with those games, we were still looking pretty for the playoffs.
We split with a couple of teams that I thought we should've swept. We got swept by St. John's on a buzzer beater in Collegeville (Andy Burns hit another buzzer beater against Augsburg last night in the playoffs). It seemed like we had a bunch of games that were just out of our reach. Games were close and we weren't getting to where we needed to be. We understood that teams would try and slow the tempo down against us. We would have to win a game in the 50s and 60s. That's how playoff games are won. Grind out possessions and making big plays. We just didn't do that.
The last three games of the season we as important as they come for us. We had Bethel, St. Mary's, and Macalester. Bethel finally had a full arsenal of players back and royally (get it) kicked our tails. We looked like we didn't want to be there. They definitely have a talented group proven by their Clubber Lane performance against St. Olaf last night (beat them by 19). We didn't come to play and it showed. Next, we had St. Mary's down in Winona. We looked flat in the first few minutes and then we hit a barrage of 3's to take the lead. We looked flat again after that. We finally took control in the second half for a must win. Finally, we took on Macalester on their Senior Night. They came out ready to play and we looked like we took a three hour road trip to get there. We were down by as many as ten in the 2nd half. All of a sudden, everything clicked. We looked like the team we were expecting all year. Our guys had a ton of energy, we were getting steals. We played as hard as we had all year in those closing ten minutes. We pulled out another must win game.
After the game, as we were walking to the locker room we found out that both St. John's and Bethel won and we were out. Tough pill to swallow after a really solid performance. We told our guys and that was it. We ended with a "W."
Like with any season you are going to issues like injuries, disciplinary issues, guys not happy with playing time, and everything else in between. We certainly had all of those and then some. We didn't exactly handle adversity or success well this year. That's a sign of an average basketball team and that is what we finished at, just above average.
On a positive note, we finished 13-12 for our third straight winning season. Something that hasn't been done in 26 years at Hamline. We are still moving in the right direction in a minor hiccup this year. We lose three seniors that meant a lot to our program and have 12 guys returning to a team that I believe will have high expectations.
Hopefully, everyone in our program understands that we need to get better in every aspect of the game. We need to be better coaches. We need to bring in better players. We need our guys to be more committed to working on their strengths and weaknesses. We need our guys to make a commitment to the weight room and conditioning all spring and summer. It has to be an overall program improvement for us to make the jump we want to.
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