January 11, 2018 By Chris Varney
It is never easy to win basketball games on the road and it has been difficult for the Grinnell College men’s team this year. So far the Pioneers have lost 3 conference games and all three away from Darby Gymn and all against good teams in the Midwest Conference. Grinnell fell to both Lake Forest, Cornell and last Saturday St. Norbert beat GC 97-85.
But — and you know there’s always a but. Grinnell did not have point guard Ky-Sean Johnson available for the Green Knights. Johnson (18.0) is the Pioneers second leading scorer behind Vinny Curta (34.3 ppg) and gives Grinnell an added dimension on offense. His ability to drive the lane and shoot the three gives Head Coach Dave Arseneault Jr. tremendous flexibility when he fills out his line-up.
The Pioneers have also had to work through the learning curves of its large first year class. There are 11 total freshmen on the roster — not all of the them play — but a lot of them do. Hannes Kogelnik (16.2 ppg) from Glen Echo, MD seems to be the best of the bunch but he struggled going 3-11 from three point land against St. Norbert. Dave Junior says that the physical play of the Green Knights wore down Kogelnik and the other freshmen.
The first years bring a lot of size to the squad — Kogelnik is a 6’7″ point guard which will create a lot of match-up problems for teams. There’s also 6’8″ Brad Geiman from Kentucky who Dave Junior says has enormous upside in talent and once he figures that out, will be a star in the conference. Plus, add in 6’7″ Dawson Keller (Eagle, CO), 6’7″ Will Dubow (Washington, CT), 6’6″ Derek Jones (Decatur, IL), 6’7″ Alex Mickus (Highland Ranch, CO), and 6’9″ Tommy Smith (Kenosha, WI) and you have a lot of size that should provide some muscle once they figure out their roles in the system. There’s also guards Zack Stice from Eugene, OR who can shoot the three, point guard Morgan Walser (Antelope, CA) and Tyler Grumhaus, who was recruited in the shadows of the Forresters at Lake Forest.
Grinnell hosts Lake Forest on Friday night — the Forresters actually out-threed the Pioneers when the met in early December. Lake Forest has Eric Porter who is 2nd behind Curta in the MWC in scoring. Next Wednesday, they host Monmouth which is also above the Pioneers in the conference standings. Throw in a Saturday afternoon game with Beloit and the Pioneers have three games at home that will be crucial to this team if they want to play in the conference tournament. Remember, the top 4 teams in the conference standings at the end of the season make the tournament.
We’ll have coverage of Grinnell hosting Beloit on Saturday afternoon beginning at 1 on 1410 KGRN and myiowainfo.com. It will be a men/women’s DH and then we’ll broadcast the Pioneers and Monmouth next Wednesday. We’ll also interview Senior Nate Balcom on the Extra Point tonight at 6 pm on KGRN.