Roundup: Tigers Capture NCAC Title And Berth Into NCAA Div. III Tournament
The Wittenberg men's basketball team captured the North Coast Athletic Conference 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, then was selected as a host site for one of 11 four-team opening round brackets
Dane Borchers
The Wittenberg men's basketball team captured the North Coast Athletic Conference 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, then was selected as a host site for one of 11 four-team opening round brackets.
Wittenberg is slated to host Lake Erie College in a first round game at 8 p.m. Friday. That will follow a game between Baldwin-Wallace College and Carnegie Mellon University, which is scheduled for a 6 p.m. tip-off.
The winners of those two games will play in the second round at 7 p.m. Saturday, also 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.
The Tigers moved up to third in the nation in the national weekly poll administered by d3hoops.com 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. For the second straight year, Wittenberg cut down the nets on arch-rival Wooster's home court, this time avenging a pair of narrow losses to the Scots during the 2005-06 regular season.
As usual, the Tigers got solid games from several supporting cast members, but the stars of the show were clearly the senior trio of Dane Borchers (Russia, Ohio/Russia), Daniel Russ (Louisville, Ky./Trinity) and Kenny Brady (Reading, Ohio/Reading). Borchers was named Tournament MVP for his 22-point, 14-rebound performance, which came on the heels of a double-double performance in the tourney semifinals against Ohio Wesleyan on Friday night. Borchers recorded his seventh double-double of the season against the Scots.
Russ, the 2005 NCAC Player of the Year and Tournament MVP, nearly matched his teammate in the post with 20 points and 10 rebounds for the third double-double of his final campaign in the Red & White. His penchant for hitting the big shots at the biggest moments continued Saturday as his two free throws with seven seconds left in the game gave the Tigers the cushion they desperately needed to hold on for the win.
Russ now stands 10th in school history with 1,387 career points.
Brady was equally clutch. He finished with 13 points, but the last five came in the final 1:36 with the Scots putting on a furious charge from what had been a nine-point Wittenberg lead. Brady hit three straight free throws to keep the Scots at bay before Russ' pair. Wooster drilled three three-pointers in the final 27 seconds to nearly send the game into overtime.
The rally was fueled by three missed free throws in four attempts by the Tigers after senior wing Phil Steffes (Centerville, Ohio/Centerville) had put Wittenberg ahead by nine points with 1:16 left on a pair of shots from the charity stripe. That capped a crucial 6-1 run by the Tigers that featured two key plays by Steffes - a mid-court steal and a hard-fought rebound.
Steffes finished with four points, three rebounds and two steals, and freshman guard Gregg Hill (Redford, Mich./Union) added seven points and two assists in 24 productive minutes off the bench. The only other Tiger player to score in the game was junior guard Pat Denbow (Louisville, Ky./St. Xavier), who finished with five points and two assists in 32 outstanding minutes. Despite being the main backcourt ballhandler against the Scots' pressure defense, Denbow was charged with just two turnovers in 32 minutes.
Wittenberg, the best defensive team in all of NCAA Division III with a scoring average of just over 54 points allowed, finally held the Scots, who rank fourth nationally with more than 100 points per game, relatively in check. The 69 points was the second lowest of the season for the Scots, thanks in large part to a 7-of-18 performance from three-point range. Wooster had hit 23 treys combined in the first two meetings between the two teams, but Wittenberg took much of the Scots' perimeter game away and found the tempo much more to its liking.
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 - including five years at Kenyon and one at Wooster - 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, including five of the last six.