Sports

Men's basketball falls to Fords in overtime in Senior Day game

In print | February 28, 2008

This past Saturday, men’s basketball took a hard-fought Senior Day game against Haverford College to overtime, before falling 78-70.

Prior to the game, head coach Lee Wimberly thanked seniors Chris Nana-Sinkam ’08, Noam Fliegelman ’08, Steve Wolf ’08, Matt Kurman ’08 and Ian McCormick ’08 for their many contributions to the program. Kurman recently scored his 1,000th career point, while McCormick has been the recipient of numerous awards this season; he recently broke the Swarthmore record for career rebounds.

The game, cheered on by an estimated 900 fans (many of whom had bused over from Haverford), was led by McCormick, who posted 20 points and 18 rebounds. Towering over Haverford’s defense, McCormick made it look easy by sinking shot after shott from the paint. As long as the team got him the ball, he seemed capable of dropping it right in.

Kurman said, “Ian McCormick had arguably the best season ever in our conference, as he was the first player in the history of the conference to average 20 points and 10 rebounds. He will probably go down as the best player to ever play at Swarthmore.”

Kurman, who has a tight passing routine with Fliegelmann, often passing the ball back and forth multiple times to confound the defense, scored 17 points of his own, including five graceful three-pointers.

The Fords established a 13 point lead at the 12:43 mark of the second half. Ryan Carmichael ’11 closed the gap with two three pointers, leaving the game 58-56 Haverford, part of a remarkable 23-5 Swarthmore run that brought the Garnet right back into the thick of the game.

Though the Garnet, led by Matt Allen ’10, established a brief lead, Haverford proved up to the challenge and regulation finished with the teams tied at 63. The Fords established a lead in overtime and did not relinquish it.

Swarthmore finishes the season with a 2-16 record in the Centennial Conference and 6-19 overall.

Afterward, Wimberly lamented the unimpressive win-loss record the team compiled for the season. In many ways, the record does not reflect the team’s level of play. The Garnet lost six out of its seven overtime games and suffered many narrow defeats against Centennial Conference powerhouses.

However, he continued, “I was impressed by the fact that the team never gave up in any game all year and played very hard for 25 games.”

Kurman said that the game mirrored their whole season. “We were ultra-competitive in nearly every game, yet seemed to find a way to lose so many of the close games rather than win.” Overall, he said, the season has been frustrating. “We came in with high expectations after missing playoffs by one game last year. With the amount of talent we had, we really should have won more games.”

Still, it’s about more than basketball. Though they are sad to end the season, Kurman said the seniors will “continue being best friends off the court.”