The Hillsdale College men’s basketball team entered last weekend looking for two big home wins but exited with two critical defeats.
After falling to the Northwood Timberwolves 90-81 on Thursday night, the Chargers were routed by the 24th-ranked Lake Superior State Lakers 82-66 on Saturday afternoon.
“Our will is there but we have not executed the way we need to execute,” head coach John Tharp said. “I thought [Saturday’s game] was one of the poorest games that we’ve played as a group and when I say that the responsibility ultimately falls on me.”
The Lakers (19-4, 14-3 GLIAC) jumped out to a 14-3 lead 6:52 into the game. The Chargers responded with an 8-2 run to cut the deficit to five with 10:07 remaining in the first half, but were unable to pull any closer throughout the rest of the contest.
The Chargers kept within striking distance throughout much of the first half before the Lakers finished the period on a 7-0 run to grab a commanding 15-point halftime lead.
The Lakers pushed their lead to as much as 24 points in the second half to put the Chargers away. Hillsdale guard Michael Furlong sunk three 3-pointers in the closing minutes of the game to make the final score more respectable.
“We didn’t have a lot of energy on the defensive end and our pace on the offensive end with our screens and cutting wasn’t as good as we needed it to be,” junior forward Kyle Cooper said.
The Lakers double-teamed Cooper every time he received the ball in the post, forcing him into tough shots. Cooper finished with just five points on 2-10 shooting.
“Sometimes it just feels like there is a lid on the rim,” Cooper said. “The double teams definitely make it harder to get clean shots off.”
The Chargers knew the Lakers would double team any player who had the ball in the post, but were unable to successfully counter Lake Superior State’s strategy.
“We worked on getting out of double teams [in practice] we just didn’t execute our game plan as well as we could have,” Cooper said.
The Chargers shot just 44 percent against the Lakers, while the Lakers made 55 percent of their shots from the field.
“Our defense has just got to get better,” redshirt freshman guard Stedman Lowry said. “We’ve just got to get stops.”
Hillsdale struggled on the defensive end on Thursday against Northwood as well, allowing the Timberwolves to shoot 54 percent from the field and from beyond the arc.
“There were too many errors defensively,” Tharp said. “We need to play more consistent on both ends of the floor.”
The Chargers led on Thursday for much of the game before the Timberwolves went on a 21-6 run to take a 71-60 lead with 6:20 remaining in the contest.
“We let one mistake turn into two turn into three and so on,” Cooper said. “It just felt like we didn’t have a lot of energy out there on the court.”
Hillsdale’s loss to Northwood held extra significance because the Chargers are battling the Timberwolves for the final spot in the GLIAC tournament.
Hillsdale is tied with Northwood in the GLIAC North Division with five games remaining.
“These last five games will make our season,” Lowry said. “We’ve got to get wins.”
The Chargers play at Michigan Tech tonight. The Huskies burned the Chargers in their matchup last month with their hot shooting.
“We’re going to do a better job of guarding their movement,” Cooper said. “We know how they run their stuff but it’s just a matter of us being able to react to it quickly enough. I think this second time through we’ll be more prepared for it.”
Hillsdale will travel to Northern Michigan on Saturday. The last time the Chargers faced the Wildcats, Hillsdale escaped with a win on a buzzer-beating dunk.
Northern Michigan is coming off an upset victory on Saturday over the then 17th-ranked Ferris State Bulldogs.
“We’re going into this weekend with the mindset that we’re going to win five games and we’re going to get ourselves in the playoffs,” Cooper said.