Lakeland Mirror

Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Brian Moser Aaron Regan fires a three point shot against Aurora University on Feb. 23. Regal only had nine points on the night. The Muskies lost to the Spartans 72-86, and ended their season.

Media Credit: Brian Moser Kris Saiberlich lines up a free throw in the Muskies' semifinal game against Aurora. Saiberlich finished the season needing only 11 more points to join the 1,000 Point Club for his career.

Entering the season, the men's basketball team had a lot of questions to answer.

The team was forced to find a replacement for graduated senior and Lake Michigan Conference Player of the Year Germayne James and then had to make the transition to a new coach after Gary Grzesk left for St. Norbert midway through the summer.

Were they successful in doing so?

"Definitely," said first year head coach Kyle Brumett. "From a wins and losses standpoint, you always want to have a better year, but I feel like our group of players really bought into the things that make me happy as a coach."

The transition wasn't without its bumps, however. At one point, Lakeland was 8-9, but finished off the season winning eight of its last ten games to grab the No. 5 seed heading into the Northern Athletics Conference tournament.

The team then did something in the first round they had only done once since 1998, which was beat Wisconsin Lutheran on the Warriors' home court, just one week after losing at WLC, 87-81, in a regular season meeting.

But a common theme developed throughout the season that eventually ended it for the Muskies.

Four times this season, Lakeland held a halftime lead only to lose the game, including their semifinal game against regular season conference champion and No. 15 ranked Aurora during which they held a 10-point halftime lead only to see it erased as the Spartans opened the second half on a 21-0 run.

Brumett sees it as something that can be fixed with a little more strength training.

"When you have leads like we did and you're not able to maintain it, one of the reasons is you're not able to play as hard for as long a period," said Brumett. "That's where the weight room comes in. We're hoping that through recruiting and offseason workouts, we'll become a deeper team strengthwise."

Brumett doesn't mean that the team didn't play hard. Much of the time, the team found itself a bit undersized. But it didn't seem to faze guys like Danny Ehnert, who finished with the second best rebound average in the conference at 8.1 per game despite being the shortest in the top ten.

Despite his efforts though, Ehnert was left off the NAC All-Conference Team. Matt Rogers, Kris Saiberlich, and Aaron Regal were among those given NAC honors, with Rogers and Saiberlich getting placed on the All-Conference Team and Regal getting an Honorable Mention.

Rogers finished the season with 462 points, the most since Cory Nickel scored 569 in 2004 and good enough for third in the conference with an 18.5 per game average.

"Once the first five games were completed, teams' whole defensive game plan was geared around stopping Matt," said Brumett. "And for him to still continue to perform and have a season like he did says a lot about him."

Saiberlich averaged 12.3 points per game and fell just 11 points shy of reaching 1,000 for his career, while Regal finished third on the team with a 10.9 points per game average and a team-high 112 assists in his first year starting at point guard.

The team will only graduate one player this season in forward Tyrone Coleman, a second year transfer who finished the year averaging 5.9 points and 4.6 rebounds in 16.6 minutes per game.

"His leadership was very instrumental in our success just by being a very positive kid," said Brumett. "My only regret with Tyrone was that I didn't get to coach him longer."

Returning so many players for next season is certainly a cause for optimism for the men's basketball team, who will look to challenge Aurora for the top spot in the NAC next season.

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