When they departed for winter break, the outlook for the Macalester men’s basketball team was bleak. They were 2-9 overall and winless in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC). Since their return from their hiatus, however, the team has gone 4-4 and now sits two games below the last playoff spot with six games to go. Though faint, the Scots’ heart monitor is beeping, and they still have a shot at a full recovery.
A hallmark of the Scots’ season has been their ever-changing starting lineups. Macalester rolled out eight different sets of starters across 19 games this season. While injuries caused many of those lineup changes, Head Coach Abe Woldeslassie ’08 made the most significant alteration to his rotation when he moved Eric Wentz ’26 and Ryan Brush ’26 to the bench after the Scots returned from winter break.
Wentz and Brush started Macalester’s first 11 games of the season, where they went 2-9. That stretch saw Wentz average 15.1 points and 6.1 rebounds and Brush average 12.2 points and 3.7 rebounds. In a game at Grinnell College on Nov. 23, Wentz tallied a career-high 40 points and 14 rebounds. Still, Woldeslassie felt his team needed a change.
“We maybe weren’t winning as many games as we wanted in the first part of the year,” Woldeslassie said. “We felt we just had to make a change, and we also felt that [Wentz and Brush] gave us some scoring punch off the bench. Initially … we had a lot of scorers in our starting lineup, and so we looked to have a little bit more balance.”
Woldeslassie sought this balance by starting Armando Akapo Nwagbo ’25 and Kyle Jilla ’27, two of the bigger and stronger players on the roster. The minutes that Wentz and Brush played didn’t change much, but the lineups they played with did, as Woldeslassie prioritized groups that could both defend and score.
Though Brush entered the season expecting to start, he took the change in stride. He continues to lead the MIAC with 55 made threes and sits third in three-point percentage at 42 percent. In his second game off the bench this season, Brush hit a career-high seven three-pointers to lead the Scots to their 76-69 win over St. Scholastica.
“Even though I was on the bench, [Woldeslassie] still preached, ‘Attack,’” Brush said. “He was like, ‘You’re gonna face their second guys, and you’re a starter on this team, you can be a starter. So, go score. Go make good plays, go assist your teammates.’ So, even though I wasn’t starting, I still was very supported by the coaching staff, and they still wanted me to do what I did when I started.”
While Brush maintained his production after his move to the bench, Wentz’s production actually improved in the second unit. In the first 11 games of the season, Wentz shot under 40 percent from the field five times and compiled four straight games without making a three-pointer.
In his five games off the bench, he never shot below 40 percent once and made at least one three-pointer in each game. He shot 34.7 percent from three in those first 11 games and shot 39.1 percent from three off the bench. Against Saint Mary’s University (MN) on Jan. 18, Wentz scored 10 of his 26 total points in the final six minutes to lead Macalester to a 61-56 victory.
However, after five games on the bench, Brush has returned to the starting lineup for the past four games, and Wentz has returned for the past three, as the injuries that dogged the Scots last year have returned to nip at their heels once again.
Badou Ba ’25, the MIAC 2022- 23 Defensive Player of the Year who missed all of last season, played just two games this season before he got injured again, this time to end his college career. Tom Andreae ’25, who got hurt two games into the season and did not play again until January, is now sidelined again with another injury. Noah Shannon ’26 and Kaden Holdbrook ’27 have likewise sustained recent ankle and knee injuries and thus are also currently sidelined. Add it all up, and the Scots are now without four starters.
“We have a few injuries, but that doesn’t really change anything,” Brush said. “Younger guys gotta embrace and enjoy the new minutes that they get. I think that’ll help us in the long run, especially for next year, because we’re gonna return a lot of our starters, and this allows guys who might not play as much next year to experience what it’s like to play on the college team.”
One of those players is Logan Davis ’28, whose eight points in three second half minutes helped the Scots claim the lead that earned them the 67-63 victory over Augsburg on Jan. 25. Though Davis’s play may not shine on the stat sheet, the Scots will need players like him to flourish if they hope to return to the MIAC postseason.
“We have so many guys on this team that can start, and you’re seeing it just with how many different guys are starting,” Brush said. “Even though some guys start some games, and some guys don’t, it’s really all the same. Guys know what they can do best, and our coaches want us to play to our strengths, and that’ll allow us to put ourselves in the best position to win.”
