Up until the end of January, the Madison College WolfPack men’s basketball team has had a consistently inconsistent season, heading into the last weekend of January with a 9-10 (1-2 conference) record.
But as I mentioned a couple issues ago, if there was any time in high school and college basketball to get hot, now is that time. The time right before tournament play starts, right around February, is when you hope your team is clicking and has enough chemistry to keep their season alive as long as possible.
Madison College Coach Jason Roscoe’s squad got the memo going into the home stretch. The WolfPack won their next two games on Jan. 26 and Jan. 28 by a combined score of 179-119, a 60-point margin.
Their next two games after that were in conference play against the College of DuPage and Joliet Junior College. They kept up their winning ways, but at a much closer margin. Madison College posted a 72-70 win over DuPage and then followed it up with an 85-77 overtime win over Joliet.
On Feb. 7, they hosted a struggling Harper College, which entered that game with a 3-21 record on the season. Throughout the beginning minutes of the game, Harper played the WolfPack close. But size was a big advantage for the WolfPack in this game and once they began to use it to pull away from Harper, taking 38-21 at halftime. Harper kept fighting, with three-pointers and turnovers keeping them somewhat close.
The inside presence of sophomore Keith Hoffman was too much for Harper College to handle, as he finished with 26 points and seven rebounds. With six minutes left in the game, the WolfPack extended their lead to over 20 points, putting this game away. They won 79-61 to extend their season-long win streak to five games.
They came out of that game having won five games in a 12-day span after just nine in the first two months of the season.
After that they finished the regular season on a 1-3 mark, including a loss in a hard-fought game to the Stormers of Milwaukee Area Technical College, one of the best teams in NJCAA Division II and the defending conference champ.
But Roscoe’s team showed that they have it in them to pull off what you need to do during tournament season – string together wins.
They finished the regular season 15-13 overall and 5-3 in conference play, good for second place. Now we’ll see if they can string toether wins in the postseason.