When the final horn of the Baldwin Wallace Men’s Basketball team’s season went off, it marked the end of eight senior’s careers.

Just for perspective, only five players can start at a time. Eight is almost a full rotation. “I don’t know that I’ve had that many before,” Head Coach Tom Heil said. “It’s going to be very difficult to replace those guys, but also very exciting.”

The clock struck midnight on their careers at BW after the Yellow Jackets made their second consecutive trip to the OAC Tournament, but this time fell in the quarterfinal round to Heidelberg in front of the BW home crowd.

After the tournament, the team was honored with individual awards as senior All-OAC point guard Michael Quiring, who became the 43rd player in BW history to eclipse 1,000 pints this season, was named the OAC Defensive Player of the Year. Which is something Heil said he thought was a bigger recognition, “I actually think being named OAC Defensive Player of the Year this year as a senior, like that’s a significantly bigger accomplishment for him, then scoring 1,000 points,” Heil said. “I mean, that’s a big deal that’s voted on by the coaches. You know over four years, his body of work, I think he guarded at a really high level and he’s an elite competitor. To me, that means more for him than then scoring 1,000.”

Joining Quiring, who was also placed on the All-OAC second team, with honors was senior forward Drew Sova and junior guard Luke Schaefer. Both were named All-OAC honorable mentions.

But, even as a season ends, Heil knows that the grind never stops. “When the season ends, and obviously this one is a little earlier than we would have liked, I think every year is a little bit different,” Heil said. “Obviously now it’s a big recruiting time we’re working very hard on the recruiting trail and then you know, we will come together as a team, and they’ll go on spring break, and when they come back, that’s when you know, they’ll go back to work. Back in the weight room and back in the gym.”

Heil said even some players were on a quicker timeline than he was, “We had guys in the gym Wednesday, right after we lost but you know, we certainly encourage them to take some time and kind of recharge the batteries,” he said. “Basketballs a long year when compared to some other sports. I just think it’s a long season. But, you know, we we’re excited about our group we got coming back.”

For Heil and the Yellow Jackets, they can’t spend too much time focusing on this season, but looking ahead to next season, where Heil envisions younger guys getting a chance to shine. “I’m excited to spend more time with our younger guys, who we can develop as competitors and leaders and all of that,” Heil said. “We had such a great group of seniors as just examples of who we want them to be. We’ll be very young next year, and we will have a number of sophomores that are going to be playing major minutes. And we’ll have some freshmen that’ll be will need to play some major minutes.”