Last night, the Lindenwood men’s basketball team played their home opener against the Hannibal-LaGrange Trojans by a strong score of 83-52.
While the first two games of the season were tough for the Lions, the team was confident going into last night’s game. And as we saw, that energy and confidence greatly paid off.
“I think what I enjoyed was through the positive plays or negative plays we just kept getting to the next possession. That’s a big thing for us right now [at] this point of the year that we just keep pushing, we keep growing, and we keep getting better,” head coach Kyle Gerdeman. “Sometimes [those things don’t] always work. I thought that the first half we kind of struggled to find our way a little bit but we kept plugging and we kept trying to do the right things, and that’s the biggest thing that I’d take away from.”
While the first two games of the season were rough for Lindenwood, last night, the Lions were the dominant force in their game. And through the team’s ups and downs, the Lions were able to take charge in every possession. This Thursday, the team will be traveling to USAF academy, Colorado to take on the Air Force Falcons. The Lions plan to apply what they learned in last night’s game, as well as their prior two games, and bring those into Thursday’s game, and the rest of the season as a whole.
“First and foremost to continue to get better. I know that sounds really simple, but it’s a big deal, and I think a lot of teams will tell you the same thing,” Gerdeman said. “You have to be focused on improving, and that’s the biggest thing for us, and I think if we do that, I think the second thing we try to do is be in a position to play our best basketball at the end of the year. That’s two things we really spend a lot of time on.”
This season, coincidentally like many of Lindenwood’s other sports teams, the men’s basketball team has many new athletes. Because of that this season, a big focus for the Lions has been to learn chemistry, fit everyone in orderly, and altogether gel as a team. According to redshirt senior guard Darius Beane, the biggest goals this season are improving everyday, getting better in practice, and striving to make and win the OVC tournament.
“The biggest improvements we need to make right now are just getting everybody involved, getting everybody locked in on both ends of the floor. Once we do that, I feel like we’ll be a pretty special team,” Beane said. “This team doesn’t have a lot of quit in it, we have a lot of tough players out there, so we should hopefully take that far with us.”
