Men’s basketball suffers loss; Looks ahead to end of season

Caitlin Doyle

A chilly start to the spring semester brings a couple of losses for Manchester men’s basketball. The team has an overall record of 10 wins and 11 losses. Of the 14 conference games that they have played so far, they have won seven and lost seven (7–7). These are fairly even win-lose ratios that show how hard the Spartans fought throughout every game.

Since the end of fall semester, men’s basketball has had 13 games. Of these, only six had final scores resulting in losses. The game on Feb 3, at Bluffton, was fairly evenly matched. Both teams had the same overall record, but Bluffton’s conference record had been slightly worse. Their record was 5–8 after their win. The first half of the game ended with scores of 38–42 in favor of the Bluffton Beavers, the second half showed the Beavers running away with that lead to an ending score of 92. The Spartans fought hard, but after shrinking the lead early in the second half, they could only manage to score a total of 71 points for the game.

The game on Feb 6 at Hanover also resulted in a loss for the Spartans. This game, however, had more even scoring across both halves. The Spartans were behind in the first half by four points and managed score only one point less than Hanover in the second half. Hanover won the game with a final score of 78–73.  This game was close until the end and showed how equally matched Hanover and Manchester are this season.

The rest of the season is made of three more conference games. Senior physical education major Matthew Brown said that this may be the toughest part of their schedule, but that they “are ready to make the moves necessary” in order to win those games. “We [the team] hope to finish within the top six and play in a conference tournament ring,” he said.  

The others on the team think this scenario is still possible. “We try to take it one game at a time,” said Junior Anthony Wright-Lake. “We know if we take care of our home games and play with energy and confidence on the road, then we will have a great chance to win these last three games.”

Both Brown and Wright-Lake agree that the team will have to improve how they have been playing for these last few games. The team just needs to push through and end on a good note for the season. 

The season is quickly drawing to a close and the last three games are all for conference standing. Tomorrow there is one home game left for this season:  On Saturday, February 13, the men’s basketball team will close out the regular season against Rose-Hulman.