Michigan Tech’s Nate Abel drives past Lewis’ Colin Kenny during a game Saturday at the SDC Gym. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)
HOUGHTON — The Michigan Tech men’s basketball team opened the regular season Saturday at home in the SDC Gym, dropping the second half of a twin bill in the GLIAC/GLVC Crossover Tournament to Lewis University, 71-67. Northern Michigan beat McKendree University in the first game of the day in a 100-93 barn burner.
The Huskies’ second-year head coach Josh Buettner leads a very young squad for 2022-23, with only two seniors on the roster. Tech’s starting five Saturday featured two true freshman, Josh Terrian and Dan Gherezgher.
Tech opened up the scoring with a 3-pointer by sophomore Adam Hobson as the shot clock expired during the first possession of the game and the Huskies built an early 10-6 lead in the first few minutes.
But the Flyers asserted themselves with a dribble penetration game spearheaded by guards Jamere Hill and Terry Ford – a trend that determined the outcome of the game – and forged a 20-14 lead over the host Huskies with 10:27 left in the first half.
Tech needed to “protect the paint on the perimeter,” according to Buettner post-game. Which means “getting into a stance and keeping your guy out of (the lane).” They were not able to do that consistently enough on Saturday.
The Lewis lead swelled to as much as 14 points in the first half, but Tech was able to fight back to within seven at halftime, down 41-34. Hill, a sophomore, and Ford, a junior, combined for 18 Flyers points in the first 20 minutes, mostly getting contested layups to fall after drives to the rack. But Tech survived and kept the game close at that point with 6-15(40%) shooting from beyond the 3-point arc.
Former Michigan Tech head coach Kevin Luke (27 seasons) was honored at halftime with an announcement and recognition of his induction in the 2022 Michigan Tech Sports Hall of Fame induction class.
Buettner equated facing Lewis to the Huskies’ only previous action – the exhibition game against UW-Green Bay on Nov. 3 – going “against some guys that were pretty athletic, really coming at us.
“They had us sped up in the first half and we had a hard time getting into our offense,” he said. “And obviously we weren’t guarding the basketball very well. I do feel like in the second half we did a better job defensively.”
Out of the break however, the Flyers were able to jump back out to a 15-point lead in the first five minutes of the second half, shooting 60.5% overall from the floor up to that point in the contest.
Tech battled back, attempting to triple themselves back into the game and did cut the Flyers lead to just one (64-63) with 3:25 remaining, shooting 7-14 from 3-point range from intermission to that far into the second half .
Tech took their only lead of the second half after Terrian then hit two free throws to put the black and gold up 65-64. But a triple by Flyers junior Beau Frericks on the next trip down the floor gave the Flers a positive margin again (67-65) and they were able to hold on the rest of the way with a drive and layup by grad transfer Atakan Sahinkaya with about 30 seconds left in the game.
Tech shot very respectably from long range with an overall 41.9% (13-31) 3-point rate. But the Huskies’ overall field goal percentage of 39.6% was not good enough. Lewis ended up shooting at a 57.1% clip from the floor – based on close-in shot selection – and outscored Tech 50-10 in the paint.
“We’re a team that’s gonna shoot a lot of threes,” Buettner said. “I understand that, but we need to do it after paint touches. Whether that’s by the dribble or by throwing in to the post and coming inside out.
“We have good shooters, (and) there’s going to be nights when I think we make 20 threes and it’s going to look awesome. We still have to get it inside first.”
Tech’s Hobson led all scorers with 25 points, followed by teammates Terrian (11) and another true freshman in his first game Marcus Tomashek (14) in double figures. Leading the Flyers were Hill (16), Sahinkaya (14), Frericks (11), and Ford (10). Sahinkaya also collected a game-high eight rebounds.
Teams were set to switch up on Sunday at the Wood Gym with NMU taking on Lewis and Tech matching up with McKendree.
“It’s awesome,” Buettner said of starting out the regular season at home. “Especially with the Hall of Fame (induction) going on (for) Coach Luke.
“We had a ton of alums here. Obviously, we’d have liked a better result today, (but) we’ve got another big game tomorrow to turn it around and come out and compete.”
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