By When top-seeded College of Idaho defeated Indiana Tech on Saturday, March 18, the men’s basketball season ended for all teams, including the Carroll College Fighting Saints.
The Saints’ men’s team ended the season with a 13-14 overall record and a 7-8 conference record, with their season ending in a 58-82 loss to Rocky Mountain College in the Frontier Conference Playoffs.
Since the end of the ’21-’22 season, the Saints knew they would have to remodel their roster, as three of the team’s leading scorers were leaving. NAIA All-Americans Jovan Sljivancanin and Shamrock Campbell – two Carroll basketball icons – graduated last year.
Throughout the off-season, the Saints signed seven newcomers to fill the holes that were left from the end of the year.
The Saints started the year off strong with a 7-2 record. The team was ranked #18 in the nation. Shortly after, adversity started to hit the squad with key players getting hurt. Senior captain and starting shooting guard Jonny Hillman, a senior guard double majoring in Accounting and Financial Planning from Post Falls, Idaho, went down with a knee injury that kept him on the sidelines of what would have been a statement trip to Arizona for the Cactus Classic, where the team played against fellow top NAIA teams. To add to it, his fellow senior captain Brendan Temple, a senior forward majoring in Marketing from Castle Rock, Colorado, rolled his ankle midway through the trip, and also had to sit out a few games. Without two of their leaders, the Saints ended up dropping their games on the trip and seeing its name drop out of the national rankings.
Following winter break, the Saints headed straight into Frontier Conference play and fought hard to reverse momentum, but it seemed like things just weren’t going Carroll’s way.
Even with hard fought games that went to the wire, the team didn’t seem to find winning ways, dropping a few close games decided in the very last minute. The team seemed to get back on track after a 20-point win on Jan. 7 against Rocky Mountain College in Billings. Then, in the team’s highlight win of the year, the Saints won a nail-biter against 12th ranked Montana Tech, 84-77 in front of a loud, sold out PE Center crowd.
The team wasn’t able to keep up the momentum from those wins, and got into a losing streak going towards the third and last round of conference matchups. However, wins in the final two games of the regular season against the University of Providence and Rocky Mountain College seemed to have lifted the spirits of the team heading into postseason play.
The fourth seeded Fighting Saints played fifth-seeded Rocky Mountain College Battlin’ Bears in the first round of the Frontier Conference playoffs.
After a tight first half, the Saints led 34-33 at halftime, but, the Saints could not keep up with the red hot shooting from the Battlin’ Bears in the second half. Rocky shot a remarkable 63% from the field and 54.5% from three points, as they ran up the scoreboard and ended up winning 82-58, bringing an end to the Saints season.
When asked about the season, Andrew Cook, a sophomore guard from Huntington Beach, California, majoring in psychology, was disappointed but also encouraged on the team’s journey.
“We were a young team this year that showed a lot of potential throughout,” said Cook.. “We struggled with consistency throughout the year but that’s expected from a young team. I would say some lessons we learned this year were how to handle success and failure better as well as showing up everyday ready to work and get better.”
Cook received Frontier Conference Player of the Week and NAIA National Player of the Week, and was ultimately rewarded with an All-Conference First Team award to reward his 18.6 points per game while shooting 49.5% from the field, while also dishing 3.4 assists per game. Temple was also recognized as All-Conference First Team, while twice being named Frontier Conference Player of the Week. Senior guard Jonny Hillman was honored with an All-Conference First Defense Team selection.
The Saints will now shift gears and start getting ready for the upcoming ’23-’24 season, with workouts starting already this spring. The team has signed two recruits, with more to come. The expectations are to flip last season’s page, and write a new book with a different ending.
Murat Guzelocak, a junior center from Istanbul, Turkey, majoring in data science, is optimistic.
“It was a tough season for us,” said Guzelocak. “We couldn’t reach our goals, but it was a good experience for the team. The adversities we hit and not having the success we are used to having made our team stronger. Going on, our fans can expect us to get back on more successful tracks, living up to the expectations that our team has.”
