Wins against Wesleyan (18-6 overall, 5-5 NESCAC) and Connecticut College (12-12 overall, 3-7 NESCAC) last weekend narrowly propelled the men’s basketball team (12-10 overall, 4-6 NESCAC) into the postseason. The Camels and Polar Bears were both 3-6 going into the regular season finale, which made the game win-or-go-home for both teams. The victory gave Bowdoin the seventh seed, and the team will face second seed Amherst (20-4 overall, 8-2 NESCAC) in their NESCAC quarterfinal matchup at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
The Polar Bears came into last weekend with a conference record of 2-6, feeling the pressures of not making the NESCAC Tournament for what would’ve been the first time in 15 years. Yet when it counted most, the team was able to come together and hopefully turn their season around.
“We’ve raised our level of intensity on the defensive end so that we have become a pretty good, solid, defensive team, which has helped us in winning the last three games leading into the tournament,” said Head Coach Tim Gilbride. “And our understanding and concentration on the offensive end in trying to get good shots and shots for our best shooters has developed too. Those two things have got us to the point where now we are playing, I believe, our best basketball at the right time of the year.”
The team’s defensive strength will be tested this weekend by Amherst’s staunch offense. Armed with many strong shooters and tall players, Amherst ranks second in the league in scoring offense after averaging 82.3 points per game this season.
“With [Amherst], we will have to defend a lot of shooters,” said Gilbride. “They have a lot of guys that can shoot the ball well, they have good size, their big guys shoot it well, as well as their guards, so that’ll be a main focus for us during the week.”
Keeping the ball out of Amherst’s hands will go a long way in keeping Bowdoin in the match this weekend.
“Our rebounding is going to be big because they have a 6’9”-6’10”, really athletic center and a couple other big guys that come off the bench so as they are a very good offensive team,” said captain Matt Palecki ‘16. “It’ll be key for us to make sure that we only limit them to one shot every time they get down the floor and hopefully if we’re playing good defense that’s a difficult shot or a contested shot. Obviously that’ll be a difficult task, but hopefully if we can do that, we can end up with a good result.”
The team had a strong showing against the Lord Jeffs during the regular season, going up by 17 points in the first few minutes only to lose after a strong second half by Amherst. While the result was not ideal, Gilbride remains positive about their first half and what the team can accomplish after their progress this season.
“We showed that we can match up with them and do some things if we play at our best, and we’re really looking forward to it,” said Gilbride.
This year’s squad features 5 upperclassmen, 5 sophomores and 5 first years. With such a young team, Gilbride expected some transition time for the team to come together, yet attributes the program’s success and growth throughout this process to the strong senior leadership on the team and many players rising to the occasion when asked of them.
In the last week of the regular season, forward Jack Simonds ’19 earned a NESCAC Player of the Week honor as he helped drive the Polar Bear’s offense, averaging 23.7 points and 7.7 rebounds per game on the week.
“[Simonds] is a very talented player. He’s got a couple big things going for himself; he’s 6’5”-6’6”, so he can score some easy baskets around the basket depending on who’s covering him, but he also shoots the ball very well,” said Gilbride. “What has developed is he’s really getting a good feel for when are opportunities to score. There were good situations for him to score during this week, our team got him the ball in those situations and he came through.”
All of the first years have had an immediate impact this season and been a large part of the team’s ability to turn the tide of their season.
“Our whole freshman class is a testament to Coach Gilbride and Coach Faucher’s recruiting; they’ve been phenomenal for us in some big spots,” said Palecki. “As a group, there’s a lot of potential for them, not even just at the end of this year but for the next three years to come.”