After this season, the team is losing a lot of seniors. Who do you expect to step up into vacant leadership positions?

Well, when we’ve won games it’s when we’ve really played as a team. So, I think that everyone is going to have to step up and continue to get better. Less than saying the whole team, I think [sophomore] Geoff [Simpson] and [junior] Charlie [Crawford-Silva] are prime for breakout years just because they’ve both played well, especially as of late, and they are starting to find their niche in ways they can score and in ways they can affect the game outside of scoring. Geoff is a really calming presence on the floor. He keeps everyone else under control. Charlie has learned that he can really affect the team defensively through getting steals and rebounds.

Does the team have any pre-game rituals?

Yeah, unfortunately [senior] Jacob [Goldstein] likes to sing this song he made up called “I Believe,” but I actually don’t like to do a whole lot of hoopla before the games. I’m really quiet before the games and kind of keep to myself. After the game, when we win, we play “Wagon Wheel” on the stereo in the locker room and we all dance around and hoot and holler, so that’s pretty fun. Another ritual after a win is [senior] Danny [Enright] comes in and flips over a desk or a chair or something. We’re more of a ritual team after we win than before the games.

Are you personally superstitious at all?

Small stuff. I’ll put stuff on my right leg before my left leg, or during the National Anthem I go up on my toes three times. It’s more if I do something and it works, then I’ll stick with it. If I take a bounce before a free throw to start the game and I make it, then I’m going to take one bounce before every free throw throughout that game.

Who would you say your team’s biggest rival is?

Probably Kenyon. Just because we recruit against them so often, so a lot of the kids that visit here end up going there and a lot of our guys were recruited by Kenyon. And Kenyon thinks that they are the best academic school in the conference, but we all know here that that’s not true. As far as on the court, having really intense games in the past three years, I’d have to say all of our games with Hiram have always been pretty fast-paced, high scoring and kind of close.

Who would you say the “team dad” is?

[Senior] Hal Sundt for sure! He’s definitely team dad number one, but I would also say that Danny Enright is a little bit of team dad too. Everybody kind of looks up to both of those guys and respects them. They’re pretty quiet guys, so whenever they speak, it’s pretty definitive — that goes as truth. But if we had a team grandfather it would have to be [Senior] Josh [Merritt] because he’s so old. He’s been around here for so many years, but he tells the dads what to say. His voice is above everyone else. Unfortunately, I might be the team mom. Well, maybe Jacob because at least for me, my mom’s always been really supportive even in the down times, and that is really Jacob.