{"id":2716,"date":"2016-03-17T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=2716"},"modified":"2016-03-17T08:00:33","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T12:00:33","slug":"season-recap-mens-basketball-surges-late-but-drops-saa-semifinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2016\/03\/17\/season-recap-mens-basketball-surges-late-but-drops-saa-semifinal\/","title":{"rendered":"Season Recap: Men\u2019s Basketball surges late, but drops SAA semifinal"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY BROOKS HOLTON – SPORTS EDITOR<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Every basketball team wants to be playing their best game once the calendar hits the latter half of the season. That was the case for the 2016 Colonels (18-9), who rode a five-game winning streak at the tail end of the regular season to finish third overall in the SAA standings. Unfortunately, it wasn\u2019t enough to continue the program\u2019s impressive postseason run as of late\u2014winning two of the last four SAA Tournament titles and appearing in the NCAA Tournament seven of the last ten years. Even with the 68-62 loss to Sewanee in the SAA Semifinals, there were still plenty of takeaways from the 2016 campaign that caught the eye of Head Coach Greg Mason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very proud of this team for continuing to fight and work together every day with the goal of playing our best basketball at the end of the season,\u201d Coach Mason said. \u201cWe did have a couple bumps in the road, which almost any team goes through over the course of the season. A big reason for the inconsistency at times was that we were a very young team trying to develop a championship-level chemistry and we really struggled to shoot from the perimeter for about a 2-month period.\u00a0But again, we kept working and never rang the bell on our season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leading the team through the highs and lows were senior forwards Blake Scinta\u2014First Team All-SAA selection\u2014and Second Team All-SAA Tyler Wesley. Scinta, also a member of D3Hoops.com\u2019s All-South Region Team, led the Colonels in scoring, averaging 18.1 points per game. Wesley, the SAA Defensive Player of the Year for a third consecutive season, anchored the team\u2019s rebounding with 9.4 boards per game, and also set the SAA record for most blocks in a single season with 74. Rounding out the postseason accolades for the team was junior point guard Matt Gump, named All-SAA honorable mention for the second straight year after leading the Colonels in assists with 74 as well as averaging 8.3 points per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cReceiving a postseason accolade in the SAA is a great honor, and helps reflect on what type of season you had individually,\u201d Gump said. \u201cHaving three guys\u00a0receiving postseason honors also means we were a successful team, as very few postseason accolades go to players on bad teams. No player in basketball can receive an award by themselves, rather their teammates are equally as important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gump will play a big role in the Colonels bouncing back from an unsatisfying end to 2016, especially with the departure of the integral Class of 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impact of this senior class was very strong,\u201d Coach Mason said. \u201cOur four seniors graduate with a better career record than the senior classes at both North Carolina and Michigan State. We will be much more perimeter based in how we will play next season, and I anticipate that helping Matt Gump\u2026As I mentioned to our players in the locker room after our loss to Sewanee, we as a program need to have an excellent off-season.\u00a0And I\u2019m anticipating many of our current players working hard on their games to give themselves a chance to step up and expand their roles.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the lofty expectations that surround the start of every new season, Gump believes that the Class of 2017 will be ready to learn from the lessons of 2016 and move forward with the same values and work ethic that has come to be expected from the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a guy that has played under Coach Mason for three seasons now, I believe he will expect me to both help the incoming freshman and help the upperclassmen evolve as players,\u201d he said, \u201cCoach Mason uses these postseason losses as lessons: if we ever feel like we are \u2018good enough\u2019 or have \u2018arrived\u2019 as players, it is easy to remember the feeling of disappointment after both of those games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gump comments that the SAA has been Centre\u2019s conference to lose these last few seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will surely be working to get back on top. As for the seniors, I do not think I am alone in saying this senior\u00a0class will be missed both on and off the basketball court. I find myself very lucky to have played with these four, as they\u00a0are a group that has broken records and cut down nets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY BROOKS HOLTON – SPORTS EDITOR Every basketball team wants to be playing their best game once the calendar hits the latter half of the season. That was the case for the 2016 Colonels (18-9), who rode a five-game winning streak at the tail end of the regular season to finish third overall in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}