Like most larger conferences they spend a great deal of time beating each other up. Over the past 8 seasons, 6 different programs have won the league championship with Transylvania the only program to capture more than one. Six different teams have made the NCAA tournament in the last 3 seasons alone, that's over half of the conference. Tournament success for the league has been elusive with no trips beyond the second round since 2006. Until this past season that was also the last time an HCAC team was awarded a home game in the tournament. This league catches few breaks in the pairings department where they have often found themselves paired with the CCIW, MIAA and NCAC Champions and mostly on the road.
Last season Transylvania kind of ran away from everyone else and won the league by 4 full games as Hanover faltered in the seasons final stretch of games. Rose-Hulman won the tournament and along with Transylvania received NCAA bids. Both teams lost in the first round, RH to North Central and Transylvania was upset at home by Carroll.
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Review and Preview
Against its neighborsvs NCAC 7-12
vs OAC 2-1
vs MIAA 5-6
vs CCIW 3-2
Overall, this isn't bad especially when you consider the league's best team Transylvania was responsible for only 1 of those wins and the league's worst team Earlham was responsible for 6 of those losses. Overall the league finished solidly above .500 against a predominantly D3 schedule, I found only 3 non D3 games. What a difference being able to go 4 different directions to play games makes. If there's anything I find surprising its that not one HCAC team played one of Indiana's outstanding NAIA programs from the Mid Central Conference (now Crossroads). I'm actually kind of baffled about that.
As you can see the HCAC schedule's almost half of the non-conference games against either the NCAC or MIAA. This is of course good for the MIAA especially considering there really aren't a lot of short trips involved. As a whole the conference seems to have found a nice balance of schedule strength, 9 of the 10 ranked in the top half of D3 while none cracked the top 100 in the Masseyratings strength of schedule index. Their schedules are like most things in Indiana, ordinary to slightly above average.
The MIAA portion of the schedule was as the 5-6 record suggests, competitive. Kalamazoo and Trine accounted for 7 of the match-ups so its not as if the wealth of games was spread around here. Only Alma and Hope didn't play an HCAC team and the 4 other MIAA teams only played 1 game each. On the HCAC side of things Hanover, Franklin, Rose-Hulman and Transylvania did not play an MIAA opponent, not surprisingly they are the furthest away.
For the foreseeable future I'd expect Trine to always have at least a couple HCAC opponents being in Indiana. Defiance always seems like the most logical opponent being the closest to our borders. Otherwise its still a pretty lengthy trip between these conferences. Distance is really the only reason that will prevent these conference from getting together more often. A dozen games per year seems like a nice number, I'd just like those to be more spread out among the teams.
In the NCAA:
Rose-Hulman lost to North Central 74-71 in the first round
Transylvania lost to Carroll 84-74 in the first round
Here's a look at the teams bottom to top from last season's standings and my brief and probably wrong take on their 2013 outlook:
10. Earlham 2-23, 2-16
Former Albion grad Marcus Gill's first season in charge at Earlham wasn't an easy one. The Quakers lost their first 20 games of the season before registering 2 wins late in the year. With a few more breaks though Earlham could have squeezed out a handful of wins as they took 5 losses by 5 points or less.
Earlham has removed last years roster from its web page in an obvious and blatant attempt to subvert any chances of writing a review/preview. I do know they graduate 3 starters and a 4th partial starter. No one from Earlham made the all-HCAC team. The Quakers have been bad for awhile now, 4, 4, 3, 2 and 2 wins in their last 5 seasons and even switching leagues didn't help their fortunes much. Its probably a long climb out from this hole and the present-past says they have a ways to go yet.
9. Mt. St. Joseph 7-18, 3-15
MSJ's season really took a dive after the new year when they dropped 13 of their final 14 games. The Lions had trouble scoring points and 8 times on the year failed to reach the 50 point mark. A bright spot for them was So. F David Mann who earned all-conference honorable mention honors. Overall this was a young team and struggled to perform on the road going 0-10.
MSJ graduates two Sr. starting guards but will return the majority of its minutes and points scored. Without an improvement in offensive production though its hard to see this team bridging what loks like a significant gap to the 5 or 6 programs directly above them in the standings. Next season looks like a another battle with Earlham for the bottom of this league.
Bonus knowledge: Olivet opens the season at the MSJ Tournament and will most likely play the Lions.
8. Franklin 11-14, 8-10
A six game conference losing streak late in the season was enough to drop the Grizzlies from the top half of the league to 8th. In their last 10 were only able to win games against bottom dwellers MSJ and Earlham. Since sharing the league title in 2009 the Grizzlies have finished in the bottom half of the league all 3 seasons.
Franklin will graduate 2 starters and a couple frequent to infrequently used reserves. Included among the Sr's is leading scorer Will Connoley. Returning will be all-HCAC F Gunner Erwin and a host of So. and Fr. For now the Grizz seem to be stuck in this half of the HCAC, to me it looks like they lose a little too much to expect much improvement. But to be honest the margin between #2 and #8 looks really thin.
7. Manchester 11-14, 9-9
Manchester had an up and down kind of season and never won more than 2 games in a row. Twice on the year they won 4 out of 5 games including to close the season. Its hard to know what Manchester's expectations were for the season but I would think it might have been a little better than this considering they won the league the season before.
If I had one question for Manchester's head coach it would be where are your Jr's and So's. The Spartans will graduate 4 Sr's, 3 of them starters and all of them tall. Returning will be 1 Sr. to be and 6 Soph to be's, in other words Manchester is hurting for players. Wow, not hard to see this team really struggle next year. If there's anything to be positive about its that they still return some good height and Fr. Greg Flores was HCAC Fr. of the year.
6. Defiance 13-13, 9-9
At one point on the season Defiance was 1-6 in league play. The Jackets rallied to win their last 6 conference games before bowing to Rose-Hulman in the HCAC tournament. Otherwise 2012 was heading for a big disappointment and it may still have been.
Defiance will graduate 5 Sr's, 2 starters and 3 other significant contributors. They were still pretty young overall though as they had significant contributions from 6 So's and Fr. Returning will be leading scorer and first team all-HCAC Logan Wolfrum. I would expect some early growing pains maybe as they retool their starting 5 and rotations, this is going to be much younger team in 2013. This is two years in a row at around .500 basketball.
5. Anderson 15-12, 10-8
Anderson was about as young as the come with just 2 Sr's, 1 Jr., 4 So's and 8 Fr. The Raven's did pretty well on the season considering and it was a 5 game losing streak in January that kept this from being a better season. Most of their losses though were of the close game variety. After the season Head Coach Tom Slyder resigned to accept the same job at North Park University.
Anderson will lose 2 of its top 3 leading scorers but will return everyone else including all-HCAC first teamer and the leagues leading scorer G Phil Hogan. The Ravens hired Wheaton College assistant Owen Handy as their head coach. Given the usual question marks about teams with coaching changes its hard to know where to peg Anderson for next season but on the surface this looks to be a program on solid footing.
4. Bluffton 16-10, 10-8
Bluffton started the year 5-0 before hitting the conference season where they started 2-4. Like Defiance the Beavers rallied and were one of the toughest teams to beat by the end of the season. Their last 5 losses on the year were by 1, 3, 1, 2 and 2 points. Despite playing what I think is a pretty weak non-conference schedule the Beavers have been very competitive in the HCAC. After a terrible 2010 saw them win just 2 games, Bluffton has bounced back to post 15 and 16 win seasons.
Bluffton will graduate 5 players, 4 of them starters and over half of the minutes played. For sure 2013 will be a rebuilding kind of year. Leading scorer Josh Fisher returns and 2 or 3 other capable scorers. It's hard to see Bluffton having much better than a .500 season and with so much of this league so bunched up it wouldn't seem to take much to drop near the end of the line.
3. Rose-Hulman 20-9, 11-7
The Engineers started their 2012 season 12-2 before a slump from mid-January to mid-February where they went 3-6. RH finished the season strong including winning the HCAC tournament and earning a birth to the NCAA's for the first time in 13 seasons. Without much doubt 2012 was one of the finest seasons by the school in the last nearly 40 years.
Rose-Hulman will graduate 4 Sr's with only one being a regular starter. The engineers return their 4 leading scorers including guards Julian Strickland and Austin Weatherford who were both named to the all-HCAC second team as a So. and Jr. respectively. I think RH will be in the hunt for the HCAC title again next season and with so much returning its possible they'll be in the hunt for an NCAA at-large bid as well.
2. Hanover 16-9, 12-6
Hanover spent most of the season right on the heals of eventual champion Transylvania. A late season inexplicable loss to Earlham started a slide in which the Panthers won just 1 of their final 6 games with their only win a 2 point win over Anderson. It was an ugly way to finish what had been a pretty fine season.
The Panthers graduate all-HCAC 1st team member C Mike Case. Case led the team in scoring and rebounding. For the most part though Hanover was a pretty young team last season and saw significant minutes from as many as 5 Fr. Probably the biggest question mark beyond the loss of Case will be their lack of overall size, but Hanover hasn't been a tall team for quite some time and they've been right at the top of the HCAC for 3 seasons running and probably will be again next year as well.
1. Transylvania 23-5, 16-2
Transylvania enjoyed one of its finest seasons in D3 as they raced out 10-0 before a couple losses around the new year. From there the Pioneers racked up 11 more wins in a row which culminated in winning the HCAC regular season championship by 4 games. Transy lost the HCAC Tournamaent Championship to Rose-Hulman in OT and then lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
The loss in the NCAA's must have stung and Transylvania must already be looking forward to 2013. They've already changed their roster to next season so I don't know what they lose, but I can tell you they return pretty much everyone including HCAC MVP F Ethan Spurlin and fellow first team member Brandon Rash. Transy should be the favorite to win the HCAC again next year and will be among the two or three top teams in the Midwest Region. Anything short of making the NCAA's and advancing would be a disappointment.
Conclusion and Unnecessary Analysis
The way the season ended for the leagues two NCAA representatives had to be a big disappointment. This league reminds me a lot of the OAC, it seems like it should be better but is amazingly competitive within itself. Only 4 games separated 2nd from 8th which is almost identical to the OAC. Unlike the OAC this league has been sending multiple teams to the dance for 3 years running and 5 of the last 6.
2013 looks to be a pretty good one for the league, of the 12 1st and 2nd team all conference selections only 3 graduate. Overall it seems like a young league with lots of Fr. seeing a lot of minutes throughout. I think the top 3 programs in the league are Transylvania, Hanover and Rose-Hulman and I don't see much to make me think that will change much next year. I would expect these 3 are going to be floating around the regional rankings discussions and at least 1 maybe two will be considered a top 15 team for much of the season.
I could go a lot of ways with the standings and it would probably look right. Things will probably be bunched up in the middle again but I think Rose-Hulman and Hanover might put a game or two more space between themselves and the rest. Transylvania should without much doubt be considered a heavy favorite.
Flimsy 2013 prediction:
1. Transylvania
2. Rose-Hulman
3. Hanover
4. Defiance
5. Anderson
6. Franklin
7. Bluffton
8. Manchester
9. Mt. St. Joseph
10. Earlham
A repeat of last year's NCAA bids where Transylvania and Rose-Hulman earn the honors. This of course goes 100% against recent HCAC history.
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