2012: 9-16, 5-9 6th place
win that made you raise an eyebrow: Baldwin-Wallace 75-73, Spring Arbor 74-69 OT
loss that made you raise an eyebrow: really don't see one
Seniors: Greg Silverthorn, Brian Sheridan, Chris Williamson, Dustin DeShais, Caleb Van Timmeran
Year two of the Sam Hargraves era in Alma began with a very challenging non-conference schedule. After a couple early drubbings the Scots settled in and had a near handful of successive good performances highlighted with a win over OAC 2nd place Baldwin-Wallace and a good overtime win over NAIA Spring Arbor. Alma entered MIAA play at 5-6 and a noted optimism.
Like most teams in this league however going on the road proved to be their undoing, Alma recorded just one road win at Albion late in the season. A near miss upset at Adrian and a close four point loss at Olivet probably kept Alma from being that #5 team challenging for the final MIAA Tournament spot. Final margins say Alma wasn't all that competitive with Calvin or Hope but were probably in most of their other league games. Alma had some injury problems here and there that prevented them from fielding the team that performed well in the middle of their non-conference. On the whole though Alma's ledger of close wins and close losses probably balanced and the Scots finished about where they should have. Last springs preview was pretty accurate. Alma was a better team this year, its just not reflected in the wins and losses.
Statistics Corner
Defense just isn't Alma's thing of late and that didn't change much this year. The Scots gave up 80 or more points in 12 of their 25 games, including 8 times within the MIAA. In a league with a lot of pretty average offenses, that's not very good. NCAA stats confirm what we probably suspected, Alma was not good at defense finishing in the bottom quarter of all defensive stats.
Thing they did better than anyone in the league: nothing
Thing they did worse than everybody in the league: allowed most points per game, highest shooting percentage allowed and fewest offensive rebounds
Alma didn't put up much resistance on defense allowing opponents to shoot nearly 50% from the floor. That's just tough to overcome on any night, let alone an entire season. Rebounding was an issue as well where they were out-rebounded in the majority of their games and offensive rebounding was particularly poor. One and done probably described their offense for most of the year.
Efficiency:
Offense: 98.58 Defense: 106.75 Total Eff Rating: 191.82
Team rank out of the last 10 years: #4
League rank out of the last 10 years: #61
Offensively Alma really stumbled down the home stretch a possible sign the second time through the league teams figured out how to defend them. Otherwise Alma's offense was heading for an above 100 rating. Defensively they were good on only a few occasions, much of the season though teams scored at a fairly high rate. Two or three really bad performance might have skewed this a little but overall its probably a fair representation of their defense.
Efficiency says they weren't quite as good as last year but I think this years schedule was overall much more difficult. Last year their 4 non-conference wins were over UM-Dearborn, Kuyper, IU-Northwest and Finlandia. This year: Heidelberg, Baldwin-Wallace, Oberlin, Spring Arbor and Chicago. That's quite an upgrade in quality of wins, so I'm calling them better.
2013-2014
Key Returnees: Isiah Law, DJ Beckman, Brandon Krause, Jacob Marawske, Charlie Helmer(?) and a host of others.
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| Underrated PG Brandon Krause |
The most significant losses to graduation are Silverthorn, Sheridan and Williamson but it feels a little less than what they lost from last year. The biggest problem for Alma next year is the word big, they have none. Lack of height is a serious issue for Alma and at least on the immediate roster there doesn't appear to be an answer. Sam Hargraves landed a couple pretty good recruits last summer in DJ Beckman and junior college transfer Isiah Law. A similar success rate next year could really give the Scots a nice boost.
Alma played around 13 guys most of the season, 8 of them return and 5 that should make-up a pretty decent if small starting 5. Alma's a competitive program now and it doesn't feel like they are that far from making a serious splash. If next years schedule is similar I'd expect a similar kind of season. The trick of picking teams in the bottom half of the current MIAA is that they are so similar it feels like one good player is enough to lift a team from 8th to 5th or maybe better. Alma will be back in the blender again next season but the prospects seem a little better for a couple more wins within the league. Having a better non-league season could be more tricky.
Range of Finish: I see the same kind of season for Alma next year which results in a similar kind of prospect for next year. 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th. I would shade this towards 5th or 6th before 7th or 8th though.
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