Last Season: 8-17, 3-11 7th place
win that made you raise an eyebrow: Denison, 75-66
loss that made you raise an eyebrow: at Alma, 78-80
Seniors: Joe Prepolec, Joe Wilson, Lee Caldwell, Evan Levine
Rob Passage just completed his 10th season as the Hornet head coach. His teams have averaged 8.6 wins and 16.8 losses. 2012 was about as average as it could have been. It was a strange kind of season in Kalamazoo, the Hornets did nothing really significant all year. They beat no one they shouldn't and lost to everyone they probably should have. Even their win over Denison wasn't really a surprise until Denison pulled off the shocker of the North Coast Tournament and beat Wittenberg.
It was my suspicion that Joe Prepolec was playing the year injured and that proved to be true when he finally sat out a game or two late this past season. Kzoo needed Joe to be 100% all year to really have any realistic chance of cracking the top 5. Even finishing 7th wasn't really their own doing as much as it was Alma surprising a couple teams in the top 5. Alma won a couple of those games, Kalamazoo didn't, and they split their season series. It's hard to call this season a disappointment since it really mirrors the past 5 but finishing 7th probably wasn't the idea when the season began.
2012-2013
Key returnees: Mark Ghafari, Eric Fishman, Grant Carey, Carter Goetz, Adam Peters, Aaron Shoenfeldt, Keaton Adams, Carl Ghafari
The Hornets will have only 1 Sr. who contributes a lot of time in Eric Fishman. Otherwise a pretty young team will continue to be pretty young. Of the guys above 4 are scheduled to return as Sophomores. Kzoo will also not be very tall. Joe Prepolec was Kzoo's tallest player at 6-6, next year they'll have two 6-5 kids and a 6-4, kid after that its all pretty much guards. Ghafari and Fishman are proven scorers, its really going to be a question of who steps in to fill the Prepolec/Wilson void which was 35% of their scoring. With only 2 players returning who shot over 40% from the field things could look kind of ugly on the offensive side of the court.
Kalamazoo is going to struggle to do any better than they have the last 6 seasons again next year. Without an influx of a talented Freshmen or two there doesn't appear to be anyone who will come close to replacing Joe Prepolec's production. The league should mostly be better and its hard seeing a team that graduates one of its best players of the past decade being better next year.
Range of finish: 6th or 7th with a slight chance of 8th
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