2014 Season in Review: Olivet

2014:   5-20,  3-11  7th place
2013:  11-14,  6-8  5th place
2012:  4-21,  2-12  8th place


Best Win of the year:  at Kalamazoo 72-69
Worst Loss of the year:   Adrian 67-69

Seniors:  Jared Kacmarczyk

Hard to believe Blake Krum will be a Senior next year

I didn't expect a lot out of the Comets this season, this is in my opinion anyway, a bit of a rebuild job for coach Chris Coles.  Olivet really didn't do itself any favors by playing a difficult non-conference schedule that included Mt. Union, Grand Valley State and NAIA II National Champion Indiana Wesleyan.  When league play rolled around the Comets had two wins to their credit over lowly Lawrence Tech and Illinois Tech.

Within the MIAA the Comets were much more competitive than you might think or even realize.  Half their games were decided by single digits and all 3 league wins occurred on the road.  Interesting to note Olivet went 6-1 at home in the league last year, 0-7 this year.  Things fell apart at the end as injuries and disciplinary issues took their toll and they lost their last 5 without being very competitive.

Given this was the youngest and pretty close to the shortest team in the league and the very low numbers of players in the program last year (18 total at the end I think), things went about as well as you might expect with so many new faces.



Statistics Corner

Olivet might be the easiest team to figure out using statistics.  Ranked #360 in FG%, ranked #397 in FG% defense.  Not very good at scoring, not very good at stopping people from scoring.  Also need to point out the Comets were #400 in rebounding margin, thats out of 409 teams.

Things the comets did well?  They finished ranked in the top 100 for steals, turnover margin and FT shooting.

Efficiency 

Offense:  96.65       Defense:   112.08        Total Eff Rating:   184.57

Team rank out of the last 10 years:   #8
League rank out of the last 10 years:  #78

From an efficiency point of view Olivet was the lowest rated team in the league.  Comet games were on the high end of the pace of play spectrum with a whopping 75 possessions per team/per game.  They are the opposite of Adrian in pace of play yet arrive at basically the same place.  Not very good and woeful on defense.

2014-2015

Key returnees:  Blake Krum, TJ Vondette, Kevin Woodson, RJ Haas, Jordan Union and everyone else

The numbers have improved significantly

A year ago Olivet had something like 12 total kids on its varsity, this year 23 kids saw varsity playing time and they were able to take a photo with 17 players.  It doesn't sound like much but its a positive step for a program that had maybe gone backwards a little bit the last couple years.  Like Adrian the Comets can return just about everyone and like Adrian that hasn't always happened in recent years.  For instance the Comets lost at least one good Fr. over the Christmas break that could have helped them.  Its unlikely this full roster will return intact.

Olivet can return its most frequent starting 5 and a roster that was the youngest in the league.  You can expect some improvement and any arrival of Freshmen or JC transfers would be a boost.   Hidden on its bench was 7 footer Adam Rayner and 6-7 Riley Boyers neither saw much MIAA action for a variety of reasons, if either is able to contribute next year it could significantly change the make-up of the Comets from the leagues shortest team to something that's not the shortest.

Range of Finish:  Olivet will be better next year, how much is going to depend on a lot of things difficult to predict 8 months from next year.  Working against them will be a league that gets better, so I can't see the Comets working their way off the bottom of the league just yet.  Maybe the most important thing for next year is continuing to improve the numbers and the quality of players in the program.  6th, 7th or 8th