To say the least, it was a down year for the Central men’s basketball team. Multiple injuries to top players severely thinned the lineup for the majority of the season, and put the Dutch in some tough situations. The Dutch opened the season 1-3 after two weekend tournaments in Ohio and Illinois. A major comeback effort fell just short in the conference opener at Loras. That was followed by a three-game win streak, which included victories over Gustavus Adolphus, Wartburg and Bethany Lutheran, all at home. The pre-Christmas portion of the season ended with a tough loss at Grinnell.

After two losses at the D3Hoops.com Classic in Las Vegas, the Dutch returned to the conference slate for good. Central struggled in the month of January, losing the first 10 games of 2020. But a resilient Senior Day performance against Simpson, willed by the return of senior Jaden Moody, gave the Dutch their first win in two months, and snapped a 13-game skid. That was followed by three losses to end the season. Head Coach Craig Douma says that while the rough season certainly was not expected, his players stayed the course, and kept improving as the year went on.

“The kids didn’t give up. They kept coming to work, and we talked a lot about that. Some of the stuff we did as a team this year, the leadership council and that kind of stuff, I think that helped us this year. It really got us through this difficult year, and you don’t plan for certain things in life, just like you don’t plan for things going on right now in the world. But you have to deal with it, and you’ve got to hit it face-on, and our guys did that. It didn’t necessarily result in wins, but we did get better. And you can recognize we kept battling, and we played teams, I thought, a lot tougher down the stretch in the second half of the season.”

Central finished the season 5-20 overall and 2-14 in the American Rivers Conference. The Dutch are built to succeed in the future, losing only one senior.