Last Season: 15-11, 8-6 tie 3rd place
win that made you raise an eyebrow: 73-54 vs Calvin
loss that made your raise an eyebrow: 64-68 at Alma, or 58-62 vs Albion
First year coach Brooks Miller guided the Thunder to their best overall and league finish since 2007 There wasn't much to be overly excited about on Trine's non-conference schedule. An impressive showing against CCIW champion North Central was probably about it, otherwise Trine beat all the teams they should have and lost to all they should except for maybe to 11-14 Franklin.
Trine's MIAA schedule started out with 4 wins in 5 before two blowout losses to Calvin and Hope. It was here most probably thought reality had hit the Thunder and they would struggle. But Trine held it together for the most part and finished the second half of the MIAA slate the same as the first going 4-3 including a surprise 52-50 win at Adrian. Trine's best basketball might have been played the last week or so of the regular when they trounced Olivet and Calvin back-to-back before meekly bowing to Hope in the last regular season game. Trine's 2nd MIAA semi-final appearance ended with a 59-50 loss at Adrian, a game they led with 4 minutes to play.
2012-2013
Key Returnees: Ian Jackson, Scott Rogers, Chris Kent, Braden Knight, Neil Smith, Isaac Loechle, Dustin Hall, Cody Jansen, Tyler Good
Just like almost everyone else in the league it seems, Trine returns most of its 2012 cast. Ian Jackson is sure to be among the league leaders in scoring, and Scott Rogers will again be among the best front-line players. Replacing Tim Pearcy and his 13 points per game and 55% shooting will be tough. Rogers and Pearcy really complimented each other and made it difficult for most teams to match-up. Pearcy's graduation means Trine loses some significant height, look for little used Hamilton Thorne or Chad Shepard to get a look at center otherwise Trine's starting 5 will be quite a bit smaller next season. I'm not sure anyone played as many Freshmen in significant minutes as Trine did, those guys will be Sophomores next season making their overall bench much more experienced.
Statistically Trine was pretty even with most of its opponents, the difference that probably won them a bunch of games last season was a turnover margin of +6.4, good for #6 in all of D3. The Thunder just didn't turn the ball over much, it will be hard to duplicate that but its likely they'll be in about the same territory next season. Its not too hard to envision Trine being a surprise winner of next years MIAA race if things went amazingly well, after all they were two 4 point losses away from finishing 2nd. But inside their 15-11 overall record was a pretty weak non-conference schedule and this astonishing stat, against teams with a winning record Trine was 1-6. Coupling that with losing a pretty good front-line player and what will likely be a better overall league and more difficult non-conference schedule I think Trine stays right around the same kind of team and maybe even take a step back.
Trine was in a very similar position after 2007, 16-10, 9-5 3rd place finish with a good chunk of that team returning and went 9-16 the next season. This Trine team returns more in overall players.
Range of finish: 2nd if things go really well, 3rd, 4th or 5th. Most likely 4th
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