Men's basketball struggles through first half of season

By Jason Leonard
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Norwich University men's basketball team is off to a surprisingly good start. With a lot of freshmen and only a couple of upperclassmen, the Cadets battled early season ups and downs.

The Cadets opened the season at the Cardinal Classic at Plattsburgh State in New York. In their first game, Norwich lost to Skidmore with a score of 66-64. In the consolation game, the Cadets beat Castleton State 88-68. That evened the Cadets' record to 1-1.

The following weekend, the Cadets ventured to Pittsburgh. In the first game of the Carnegie Mellon Invitational, the Cadets lost to Juniata 73-49.

In the consolation game, the Cadets lost to Notre Dame of Ohio with a score of 68-53. The losses moved the Cadets to a record of 1-3.

In the Cadets' home opener against Johnson State, Sophomore guard Matt Johnson scored 18 points and made the game-winning basket to lead Norwich to a 77-75 win. Freshman forward Adrian Ackles added 13 points and four blocks. The Cadets shot 52% from the floor. With the win, Norwich improved to 2-3 overall.

The the Cadets' third tournament of the season was the Ed Hockenbury Classic, which was hosted by Norwich. The Cadets were crowned champions for the first time in 3 years.

In the first game, the Cadets played Lyndon State and won with a score of 82-70. In the championship game versus Castleton, the Cadets won 74-50.

Freshman guard Dominique Jones was named the tournament's most valuable player after scoring 19 points for Norwich. Sophomore guard Matt Johnson joined Jones on the all-tournament team. He scored 19 points, sinking five three-pointers for the Cadets, who improved to 4-3 overall.

On Dec. 6, the Cadets traveled to Colby Sawyer College and lost with a final score of 83-49. This loss evened the Cadets' record at 4-4.

After falling to Colby Sawyer, the Cadets hosted Bowdoin on the 8th of December. The Cadets lost 67-52, and their record dropped to 4-5. Sophomore Matt Johnson scored a team-high 18 points in that game.

The Norwich team is struggling to find team chemistry, and next semester will bring new challenges that will either make or break them as they endeavor to win the GNAC conference.

Junior forward Dana Harris, 22, a Communications major from Springfield, Mass., stated the team has not played to its full potential and can look to improve.

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