Ashland University Men’s Basketball ended their breakout 2015-2016 season last week with a 77-60 loss to the Indianapolis Greyhounds in the first round of the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional Tournament.  The No. 12 Men’s team finished their season with a final record of 25-6.

Riding a 25-5 record and having won 12 out of their previous 13 games, AU Men’s Basketball was entering their first NCAA Division II Tournament for the first time in 25 years.  The last time the men’s team made the NCAA Tournament, AU Men’s Basketball head coach John Ellenwood was in the eighth grade and George H.W. Bush was in the White House. 

While their 2015-2016 campaign turned out to be a record year for AU Men’s Basketball, it was not necessarily something that was unexpected to those within the program.  Coming off of a 19-10 regular season record during the 2014-2015 season, the Eagles had momentum heading into this past season.

“I thought it was a springboard from last season,” said Ellenwood. “Last year, we had a very good year. We won 19 games and were co-GLIAC South champs, and this was just kind of a springboard into this season.”

The Eagles certainly used the springboard from last season to their advantage heading into this season, winning nine out of their first ten games, including eight in a row to kick off their 2015-2016 regular season.  The Eagles continued to dominate the winning column for much of the season, at one point winning 12 in a row heading into the last two weeks of the regular season.

“A lot of those wins were close,” said Ellenwood. “We had a lot of close wins this year that you don’t win unless you have toughness and leadership and we were able to do that. I think our guys were driven.” 

Moving forward, the Eagles have a clear direction as to where this team is going.  While the team will lose redshirt senior Michael Hundley on defense this offseason, the Eagles clearly know where their offensive philosophy stands heading into the 2016-2017 season. 

“The majority of our points are coming back,” said Ellenwood. “We have our top five or six scorers coming back. Plus we’re adding some guys that were redshirting last year.  Our biggest question mark going into next year is not those same questions we had the year before.  Our question marks is whether our guys are hungry for more because we accomplished a lot this year but we’ve got to have bigger goals next year.”

The Eagles leading scorer for the season was junior forward Wendell Davis who ended his 2015-2016 campaign averaging 17.4 points per game along with 7.7 rebounds per game.  Junior guard Adrian Cook and sophomore forward Marsalis Hamilton both finished the year averaging over 12 points per game.