Courtesy of Brian Beard

Last weekend, the men’s basketball team (15–7; 5–3 NESCAC) defeated Middlebury College (8–14; 1–7 NESCAC) 77–76 in a last-minute surge from Ray Cuevas ’28. The Polar Bears followed it up with a victory on Senior Day versus Williams College (11–11; 0–8 NESCAC) 66–56 to propel the team to fifth in the NESCAC.

Friday’s game versus Middlebury saw plenty of scoring from Bowdoin. From the opening tip, the Polar Bears were moving the ball around their offensive zone and finding lots of points in the paint. After a high-scoring first 20 minutes, the Panthers held a nine-point lead heading into the locker room after 26 points from their starting guard.

“[Head] Coach [Alex] Lloyd came into the locker room very calm, which was huge. He made some switches defensively and told us how we react [to] being down nine at half is the biggest thing,” guard Ben Chilson ’27 wrote in an email to the Orient. “The first four minutes of the second half is one of the most important times that influences the rest of the game.”

Lloyd’s speech worked some locker room magic—after a quick score by Middlebury, the Polar Bears went on a 15–0 run in the first five minutes of the second half to give the team a 46–42 lead. Chilson scored a pair of three-pointers during that stretch, with a total of 11 points and two steals for the night.

“Our offensive strategy is based on trusting our teammates to shoot if they have a good look, so I knew if I had an open shot to take it,” Chilson wrote. “We emphasized communicating on defense to get stops. Basketball is a game of runs, so even after our 15–0 run, we knew we had to keep our foot on the gas to maintain our lead.”

The remainder of the game saw runs by both teams and a trio of lead changes. After a three-pointer by Middlebury with 54 seconds left, the team called a timeout to draw up the game-winning play. With the shot clock expiring, Cuevas found room at the top of the arc and drained a three-pointer to put the Polar Bears up 77–76 with 16 seconds left. The Panthers missed a last-second shot as the Polar Bears prevailed in the high-scoring affair.

“[Lloyd] assembled us in a formation around the arc and had Mason [Dawkins ’29] come off one screen to occupy a few defenders, then he had someone re-screen for me to then get the ball. He then told me to make a play,” Cuevas wrote in an email to the Orient. “At that point, I was in a flow state, so I really wasn’t thinking much. [Lloyd] has built a lot of trust into my game, so I feel comfortable in those scenarios when we need it.”

Saturday’s game saw the team celebrate its five seniors in their last regular season home game. After a back and forth first half, the score was tied 27–27 thanks to ten points from Cuevas. Just like its previous game, the team came out firing on all cylinders in the second half with an 11–0 run to take the lead with just over ten minutes of play left.

“We knew we had to do a better job taking care of the ball and connecting stops. [Williams] is a team that has struggled to score, but they have been in a lot of close games because of their defense,” Cuevas wrote. “We knew that if we could guard and limit easy points, our chances would be high to win that game.”

The 66–56 victory marks the team’s first win over Williams since 2019, securing the Polar Bears a spot in the NESCAC tournament for the first time since 2022. With two games left in the regular season, the team is currently the fifth seed.

Cuevas noted the importance of the achievement and the team’s growth in the last year.

“It means everything to this team and is a testament to how far we have come and how far this program has come since [Lloyd] was hired,” Cuevas wrote. “That 1–9 conference record doesn’t just magically improve in one year. It took a lot of work in the offseason and preseason to build our team and change the culture.”

The Polar Bears will travel to play Wesleyan University (17–5; 7–1 NESCAC) tonight at 7 p.m. and Trinity College (20–2; 6–2 NESCAC) tomorrow at 3 p.m.