As the season winds down, the Ferris men’s basketball team looks to focus on one game at a time in the last seven games.
This season marked the sixth straight year that the Bulldogs compiled 20 or more wins as they are 22-5 after this weekend’s action. With Ferris hosting five of their remaining seven games, the Bulldogs hope to improve upon a 14-2 home record.
“We try to win every game whether neutral, home or on the road. You have a slight advantage when you’re at home because you’re used to it, you’ve got more of your fans here and they bring the energy that you need sometimes,” Ferris men’s basketball Head Coach Andy Bronkema said. “We have a little advantage being at home and it’s better to have them at home than on the road, but in this league if you don’t play well you can still lose at home. It’s not like such an advantage where it’s impossible to lose. You still have to play well and stay focused, but it’s nice to have majority of them at home.”
Over the length of the season Bronkema has preached that winning the home games and splitting on the road is the general philosophy. Junior wing Dorian Aluyi said that, to him, the team’s word for the rest of the season is “compete.” Aluyi believes they need to finish strong and keep competing if they want to have success.
“Love the fans here,” Aluyi said. “They give us a great environment and we like to put on a show for them and get the win, so it would mean a lot to host it, but even if we don’t, that’s fine too we like to compete. Wherever we go we will compete. I think it will be good to play at home right before playoffs start, get us in a groove and hopefully we host it.”
The Bulldogs have high potential to win at minimum six of the remaining seven as they have beaten each team previously except Michigan Tech.However, Michigan Tech has to invade Bulldog territory this time and could be in for a surprise. The Bulldogs have lost a total of five games this season, but only two have been at home and three on the road.
“It would be a big stepping stone for us to finish out strong out on the road because most of our loses are on the road. Getting those wins on the road can give us more confidence and just have us more prepared for later on, on the season,” senior point guard D’angelo Hughes said. “As a team we just have to be locked in ready to go and prepared for anything that’s ahead of us.”
The Ferris men’s basketball team is 11-4 in the GLIAC. The Bulldogs are only two games behind rival Grand Valley State for the conference lead.