Wittenberg Men's Basketball Wins Conference Title, Earns First-Round Home Game In NCAA Tournament
It has been a whirlwind 72 hours for the Wittenberg University men's basketball team, and with today's announcement of the NCAA Division III Tournament brackets the ride isn't going to end too soon.
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — It has been a whirlwind 72 hours for the Wittenberg University men's basketball team, and with today's announcement of the NCAA Division III Tournament brackets the ride isn't going to end too soon.
The Tigers captured the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Tournament championship with a 71-69 victory over the College of Wooster on Saturday to earn a berth into the 2006 NCAA Division III Tournament. Wittenberg, which will make an NCAA Division III record 24th appearance in the national competition, was selected as a host site for one of 11 four-team opening round brackets.
Wittenberg is slated to play Lake Erie College in a first round game at 8 p.m. Friday, March 3, at home in the friendly confines of the HPER Center. That will follow the conclusion of a game between Baldwin-Wallace College and Carnegie Mellon University, which is scheduled for a 6 p.m. tip-off, also in the HPER Center.
The winners of those two games will play in the second round at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 4, at Wittenberg. The winner of Saturday's game will find out on Sunday, March 5, where the four-team sectional tournament will take place on March 10-11. The national semifinals and finals are scheduled for March 17-18 in Salem, Va.
Tickets will go on sale at the HPER Center at 4:30 p.m. on Friday and 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. There will be no pre-sales. General admission tickets for adults are priced at $8, and general admission tickets for students and seniors will cost $5. No passes of any kind will be accepted. One ticket will get spectators into both games on Friday.
The Tigers were ranked sixth in the nation by d3hoops.com last week and have merited mention in the top 10 of the Web site's weekly national poll all season. After winning three NCAC Tournament games last week, Wittenberg brings a 25-3 overall record into the national competition, including a mark of 13-3 during the NCAC regular season. That was good for second place behind Wooster, the host of the NCAC Tournament semifinals and finals.
Led by 2005 NCAC Player of the Year and NCAC Tournament Most Valuable Player Daniel Russ, class of 2006 from Louisville, Ky., the Tigers are the stingiest defensive team in all of NCAA Division III, allowing just 54.6 points per game. Russ ranks second in the NCAC in blocked shots and leads the Tigers with 15.6 points per contest while shooting 56 percent from the field. In addition, Russ, a 2005 third-team All-America honoree, averages 6.0 rebounds and nearly two assists per game, both of which rank second on the team.
Russ took a backseat during the NCAC Tournament, however, as Dane Borchers, class of 2006 from Russia, Ohio, earned NCAC Tournament MVP honors. Borchers, who led the Tigers in scoring and rebounding a year ago, is second in points with 13.2 and first in rebounds with 7.7 this season. He posted back-to-back double-doubles against Ohio Wesleyan and Wooster in the semifinals and finals of the conference tournament last weekend.
The Tigers are sure to be tested again this weekend after winning the 300th game of Head Coach Bill Brown's Wittenberg career on Saturday against Wooster. Brown has a record of 300-69 in 13 seasons as the head coach of his alma mater's men's basketball program, and his overall record stands at 360-168. He is nearing the Wittenberg record for coaching wins, which is currently held by Larry Hunter, who guided the Tigers to a 305-76 record between 1976 and 1989.
Brown's teams have won six NCAC regular season titles and four NCAC Tournament championships. The Tigers have reached the NCAA Division III Tournament nine times in his 13 seasons. Baldwin-Wallace has also been ranked all season as well, reaching a high of No. 3 nationally before losing twice in the final week of the regular season. The Yellow Jackets recovered, however, and swept the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) regular season and tournament championships for the first time in Head Coach Steve Bankson's 26-year career at the school. Baldwin-Wallace has a 24-4 overall record after defeating Ohio Northern in overtime in the OAC Tournament championship game Saturday.
Carnegie Mellon has been ranked for most of the season and even briefly reached the top 10 nationally. The Tartans captured their first-ever University Athletic Association (UAA) championship with a 10-4 mark, part of a 20-5 overall record (the UAA does not hold a conference tournament). CMU is making its first appearance in the NCAA Division III Tournament since a 1977 loss at Wittenberg as the Tigers went on to win the second of their two national championships.
Rounding things out, Lake Erie will be making its first-ever NCAA Division III Tournament appearance after winning the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference regular season and tournament titles. Lake Erie has a 21-6 overall record under first-year Head Coach Cliff Hunt, who took over the team just two weeks before the season started.
None of the four teams in the bracket at Wittenberg have played each other previously this season. Wittenberg has a 34-11 all-time record against Baldwin-Wallace, formerly a heated rival when the Tigers and Yellow Jackets were both members of the OAC, a 2-0 record against Carnegie Mellon and has never played Lake Erie.
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