As the year dwindles down, we approach the halfway point of the season and get a chance to reflect on the season so far. As a team, we haven’t had the start to the season we had hoped for. Right now we stand at 2-8 and ranked outside of the Big 16. That being said, we have had some good things happening in the background. For starters, we had a great recruiting class and they have picked up on the game fairly quickly. However, we lost some big hitters from the season before and have missed more of the veteran presence on the court. Too often we lose track of what we practice and points get away from us. Going forward we need to look at it as we are in a reload and not a rebuild. We also said goodbye to long time member Eli Huntley as he graduated from the University of Wisconsin- Platteville this December and his presence on the court will be greatly missed.
Looking towards the remainder of the season we plan on working on the nitty gritty things. Making sure we don’t lose focus of the game we play is a priority as well as getting our rookies more experience and filling the holes we have had. Developing our rookies’ knowledge of the game and fine tuning some aspects of the veteran game. We want to continue building the culture we have been creating around the team and becoming a tighter knit unit.
Here’s what some of the team had to say:
Tomas Zander (Co-Captain)
“I’m really proud of our recruitment efforts. We found a bunch of eager young players ready to learn and get better and proud of how the older guys have handled teaching them. I want to see the older guys shift from their focus on getting themselves to the next level. They need to clean up the fundamentals. If they can clean up the fundamentals they can look for some upsets in the next half of the season. I really enjoyed going to practice this semester. I didn’t make every practice so I was pleased when I showed up and all the board members taking charge of practices and encouraging the rookies to play hard.”
Ethan Schmeling (Rookie)
“I believe we had good ball control, and our communication went well and improved drastically as the season went on. I would like to see us improve on moving as a team and looking across to see where the team is as well as keeping an eye on the cross throws. Those really killed us in points last semester. I’d say some of my favorite moments were team bonding nights where we got to be a team off the court and form a better connection. Team dinners and bowling nights were always a great time. Bonding is key for a great team and having a great time with your teammates is an experience I’ll never forget.”
Bryden Hundt (Rookie)
“As a team, I would like to see our consistency improve. A lot of that comes to doing the small things right. As for myself, I would like to improve on my throw. I want to be more of a threat on the court. As a team, the first two points against Kent. That showed that we can compete, and we should be a lot more successful than we were. As an individual, I would have to say being a survivor player in a lot of points or the getting 5 outs in the match against CSU. The team started to find rhythm and our game towards the end of the semester. There were points where we would dominate, and I hope we can bring that back.”
That being said, we are ready to return to the court and continue to build the team up and make a push going into nationals. And as always, Go ‘Neers!!