After the first five games of the Rensselaer men’s basketball team’s grueling season, Head Coach Mike Griffin has found himself experiencing many of the same feelings he faced prior to Rensselaer’s season opener.
The Red Hawks have shown signs of brilliance and mediocrity en route to an early 3-2 record. This inconsistency has left Griffin and Assistant Coach Mike Benfer searching for answers.
“We are still trying to gather information on the team,” Griffin said. “It is not clear what kind of team we are going to be yet. We have seen a lot of mixed messages from our team.”
The Red Hawks’ unpredictability was evident in the opening weekend as Rensselaer played poorly in a 70-49 loss on November 21 to a beatable Haverford team, but then responded the next day to crush Swarthmore 89-58.
“We did not play well against Haverford but we rebounded well against Swarth–more,” Griffin said. “It was disappointing to come out of the weekend 1-1.”
Despite the loss to Haverford, the Red Hawks did not appear discouraged as they defeated a respectable Potsdam team 66-56 in their home opener on Tuesday, November 25 at Robison Gymnasium.
Rensselaer fell behind 13-1 early in the contest but then rallied and only trailed by four at the half. In the second half the Red Hawks made some adjustments on the defensive end of the floor switching to a zone. Offensively, Rensselaer shot 54 percent from the field, and guard Paris Moore went on to tally 30 points.
“Defensively, the zone really helped us keep the ball out of the inside and limited Potsdam to jump shots,” Griffin said. “On offense Paris put in another spectacular performance for us. He has been our most consistent player all season.”
However, Rensselaer’s short winning streak ended when the Red Hawks lost 83-72 to an admirable Susquehanna team in the opening round of the Holiday Inn Airport Invitational in Rochester, NY.
Susquehanna is big and burly, and much different than any team the Red Hawks had faced in their young season. This seemed to show as Rensselaer was caught off guard by Susquehanna’s physicality.
Rensselaer went into the half trailing 44-32, but recovered to tie the game with less than five minutes remaining in regulation. Rensselaer was unable to make the necessary plays down the stretch and Susquehanna pulled away late for a misleading double-digit victory.
“Susquehanna is a very physical and experienced team,” Griffin said. “They are an NCAA-caliber opponent, but we hung tough and battled back. They simply showed more poise late and made the critical plays to win the game.”
Jared Hite led the team with 22 points in the loss while Moore added 21 of his own in another solid game.
The tale of two teams continued in the consolation game on Saturday as Rensselaer exploded to score 98 points in a four point victory over Wesleyan.
The game was not nearly as close as the final score would indicate as Rensselaer controlled the game from the early going. Wesleyan made a late charge to make the score respectable but never truly threatened to take the lead.
Hite led the team again in scoring with 24 points on his way to a selection to the All-Tournament team while teammates John Van Schaick (19), Moore (14), and Matt Zepernick (10) also reached double figures.
With two very dissimilar Red Hawks teams showing up from game to game, Griffin is still trying to make the correct adjustments that will solidify his line-up and move the team in the right direction.
“It is a satisfactory start to the season, Griffin said. “But we still have a lot of room for improvement. We will continue to assess our personnel and look at tapes to try and determine what defenses and offenses are working the best for us.”
The first part of the season has answered a few queries Griffin had entering the season. Kori Massey and Neal Wesson have both played solid at the point guard spot while Moore and Hite have been major contributors in every game.
“Kori has a 19-5 assist to turnover ratio, which is superb. He has taken, and made, a lot of high percentages shots,” Griffin said. He has done a great job not forcing the issue while Neal made quality contributions off the bench. Jared is also continuing to play better and Paris has been nothing short of solid to spectacular every game.”
In spite of a few bright spots for Rensselaer, the future is still uncertain. Griffin, Benfer, and the all of the Red Hawks will be working hard before the Christmas vacation to address, and hopefully solve, many of the serious matters facing the team.
Rensselaer will need to figure out their issues in order to survive an extremely tough pre-conference schedule.
The Red Hawks have several difficult games in early January. RPI will travel to Williamstown, Mass.to face the defending D-III national champion, Williams College, in the Williams College Tournament, and then face an exceptional Middlebury team at home.
If the Red Hawks can endure these games they should have a great deal of confidence entering their conference schedule.
