The St. Thomas men’s basketball team finished its 2013-2014 season with a 22-6 record, won the MIAC regular season championship, had three players named first team All-MIAC and made an NCAA playoff appearance for the ninth consecutive season.

With the season coming to an end last Friday in Whitewater, Wis., let’s take a look back at what helped the Tommies to such a strong year.

Team accomplishments

Hamline held the previous record for consecutive MIAC conference championships with seven from 1946-53. This season’s championship made it a record-high nine consecutive titles for the Tommies.

A driving force behind the last four titles has been the Tommies’ strong, senior class leadership from guard Erik Tengwall, forward Zach Riedeman, forward Josh Pella and guard Kevin Hannon.

With two Final Four trips, the senior class was together for 121 varsity games and topped the 100-win milestone. In four years they combined for a record of 104-17. Over the last six seasons, the Tommies have earned 157 victories and leads Division III with an average of 27 wins per season.

Another milestone this year was St. Thomas making its ninth-straight NCAA tournament appearance. Over the last five season, the Tommies’ are 7-0 at home in the NCAA playoffs and 14-4 overall. St. Thomas has an all-time NCAA playoff record of 23-14.

“To go 18-2 in the conference and win our ninth-straight conference title, ninth-straight 20 wins or more, nine-straight NCAA appearances, those are accomplishments that I don’t know if anyone else in the country has streaks like that, and we’re extremely proud,” coach John Tauer said.

Tengwall has made 73 starts at guard for St. Thomas and had a 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio the last two seasons. Tengwall is a graduate of New London-Spicer where he was a part of the state championship football and basketball teams.

Tengwall went down with an ankle injury during the conference playoffs this year which could have a been a factor in the Tommies’ home-court loss in the championship to St. Olaf.

“Obviously the season didn’t end like we wanted … but looking back from where our season started to where we finished and how much better we grew as a family and as a team was really special this year,” Tengwall said. “So I’m very proud of what we did and what we accomplished, and we found our identity throughout the season.”

Forward Zach Riedeman scored 958 career points in 110 career games and was a Mr. Basketball finalist coming out of Forest Lake High School. Forward Josh Pella missed a majority of the 2011 season with an injury, but came back for a career of more than 60 games. He played in the Minnesota Coaches’ Association all-star game, representing Champlin Park. Guard Kevin Hannon stayed close to home and followed his older brother Tommy to St. Thomas basketball from Cretin-Derham Hall.

St. Thomas was No. 15-ranked in the preseason d3hoops.com poll, climbed to No.7 in December and finished the season at No. 18.

Highs and lows

The Tommies’ had six, come-from-behind victories throughout the season. The third game of the year they came back from a 13-point second half deficit against UW-River Falls to win the game 75-69.

“It was the moment that us, just as coaches and teammates, get to share off the court. Whether it’s traveling out to (California) or the long bus rides back from Concordia and St. Mary’s – it’s the little things that the spectators don’t get to see off the court which really creates our solid bond,” Tengwall said.

To the players, the lowest point of the year came after home-court losses to St. John’s and St. Olaf.

“Losing on our home court to St. Olaf in the championship, and … on our home-court to St. John’s always stings,” Pella said.

For Tengwall, losing in the first-round of the NCAA tournament was not a low, but a difficult moment walking away from a team that’s meant so much to him.

“It’s tough because you don’t want to walk away from the team, especially as a senior because you know you won’t have that opportunity again,” Tengwall said. “To share that with those guys … it was pretty special. It’s hard to walk away mad or angry that we didn’t go farther. I was definitely sad, but I’m proud of where we got to.”

Tauer said that one of the hardest parts of the season was losing a key leader at a crucial time of the year.

“Having Erik (Tengwall) go down with an ankle injury and missing the conference playoffs … we were riding such a high after clinching the conference title,” Tauer said. “Probably the greatest disappointment is that I don’t think we played our best basketball at the end of the year, which is one of our goals. Some of the credit goes to the other teams we played, and some of it we need to step back and figure out why that was.”

Future Tommies

The future is certainly bright for men’s basketball in years to come. The team got big minutes from underclassmen guards Grant Schaeffer and Cortez Tillman. Junior Conner Nord was a captain as a junior and was named first-team All-MIAC. Junior guard Marcus Alipate is a 45 percent career 3-point shooter and already has 609 points in 86 games.

“We feel great that guys like Conner Nord and Marcus Alipate, Dylan Stewart, Jimmy Ancius will all be seniors next year,” Tauer said. “But we also have a good group of freshmen and sophomores, so we think the future is bright but we also don’t take anything for granted.”

Tengwall said coming into the program as a freshman has allowed him to pick up things that he and the other seniors have passed down onto the next generation of men’s basketball players.

“We saw what it took to get to the national championship level in that freshman year, and I think we kept building on what we learned our freshman year to our senior year,” Tengwall said. “We’re leaving those building blocks for the underclassmen behind us now, and we can just hope they continue to build off what we taught them and what we learned off of past players as well.”

Pella said Tauer will continue to guide the program in the right direction.

“It’s left in good hands with coach Tauer and junior captain Conner Nord, soon to be senior captain next year,” Pella said. “I think we paved the road for the future Tommies to come and the young kids on the team to know what to expect when you play for this school.”

Tauer said in his 19 years at St. Thomas as a player, assistant coach and head coach, the philosophy is to build the team so that it will always be successful year in and year out, even with the departure of four senior leaders.

“What we have tried to build is what we call ‘sustainable excellence’ – that it’s not going to be one great year and then a year where we’re under .500.”

Joey Anderson can be reached at Ande9008@stthomas.edu.