The Wittenberg University men's basketball team believed all season that it was good enough to compete on a national level. Now Head Coach Bill Brown and his North Coast Athletic Conference regular season and tournament champion Tigers will get their opportunity to prove it.
Wittenberg, owners of a 25-3 overall record following Saturday's thrilling 58-57 NCAC tournament championship game win over archrival Wooster, will square off at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 28 with the Franklin (Ind.) College in an NCAA Division III tournament first round game at the HPER Center. A win on Thursday against unranked Franklin would advance the Tigers, who are ranked 11th in the nation by d3hoops.com, to a second round match-up on Saturday, March 2 with 10th-ranked DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind.
The Tigers were placed in an incredibly difficult 12-team regional bracket that includes seventh-ranked Ohio Athletic Conference champion Otterbein College, second-ranked University Athletic Association Washington (Mo.) University, sixth-ranked Randolph-Macon College and 24th-ranked Maryville (Tenn.) College. A year after the Tigers advanced to the round of 16 before losing to eventual Final Four participant Ohio Northern University, Wittenberg will have its work cut out to advance to an NCAA Division III record seventh tournament semifinals.
Wittenberg is the winningest NCAA Division III basketball program of all-time with 1,437 victories, and has made the most NCAA Division III tournament appearances of all-time. The 2002 berth is the 21st for the program since the division was created in 1975, and the Tigers have an overall record of 41-20, giving them the most tournament wins of all-time. Including seven appearances in the old college division, Wittenberg has played in 83 NCAA tournament games, winning 55 and two national titles - in 1961 and 1977. The Tigers have also made eight national semifinal appearances, including a record six in NCAA Division III. The last trip to the championship tournament came in 1994, Brown's first year as head coach of his alma mater, and the Tigers finished third.
Franklin is 20-8 overall and champion of the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference. This is the program's fourth NCAA Division III appearance in the last five seasons.
To reach the postseason, Wittenberg had to run a very difficult gauntlet last week, defeating three NCAC foes for a third time this season. In winning the NCAC tournament for the first time since 1996, the Tigers toppled eighth-seeded Earlham on Tuesday, fourth-seeded Ohio Wesleyan on Friday and second-seeded Wooster on Saturday. All three games were played Wittenberg's HPER Center, home of the top-seeded Tigers.
Wittenberg started a little slow against Earlham but finished strong, burying the visiting Quakers in an avalanche of post maneuvers for a 78-51 quarterfinal win. The Tigers trailed by as much as seven points in the first half and struggled to take a 36-31 lead into the locker room as halftime. But the second half was all Wittenberg as the Tigers shot 52.6 percent from the field and limited Earlham to just 25 percent shooting in outscoring the eighth-seeded Quakers 42-20 in the final 20 minutes.Wittenberg, which outrebounded the Quakers by a whopping 50-25 margin and got 37 points from its reserves against just one point for Earlham, was led by junior center B.J. Harris (Riverside, Ohio/Stebbins), who hit for 21 points and 15 rebounds in just 22 minutes of action. Harris best game statistically was his 10th double-double of the 2001-02 season. Sophomore forward Peter Walker (Louisville, Ky./St. Xavier) had nine points in 15 minutes off the bench and senior center Brian Gratsch (Madeira, Ohio/Madeira) and freshman guard Danny Brywczynski (Dayton, Ohio/Northmont) each chipped in with eight points off the bench.
Wittenberg defeated Ohio Wesleyan in a hotly contested semifinal game, 75-69, a margin of victory that was actually the largest in three Tiger wins over the Bishops in 2001-02. The win advanced the Tigers to the NCAC championship game for the second straight year and the eighth time since joining the league prior to the 1989-90 season.
Bucheit
Walker
The Tigers, who lead the nation in rebound margin for a second straight year at more than 12 per game, topped OWU on the glass by a 41-32 margin, including a 17-8 advantage in offensive boards. Otherwise, things were amazingly even as both teams shot just under 50 percent from the field and around 40 percent from three-point range.
Wittenberg was led offensively by sophomore guard Rod Emmons (South Bend, Ind./John Adams), who knocked down four first-half three-pointers en route to 13 total points in the game. Harris joined him double figures with 12 points and seven rebounds, including five on the offensive end. All 10 Tiger players who saw action in the game scored at least three points, and every one of them had at least one rebound.
In Saturday's championship game, Wittenberg held just two leads but one of them was the lead that mattered most. Trailing Wooster by two points, the Tigers were rescued by three clutch foul shots by senior guard Greg Rustad (Lakewood, Ohio/Lakewood) with eight seconds remaining as they pulled out a 58-57 win.
Wittenberg trailed the entire first half, at one point by 10 points at 22-12, before rallying to within one by halftime. They did it by ratcheting up the defense and limiting the Scots to just two points in the final 10 minutes of the first half.
In the second half, Wittenberg showed a lot of heart, once again clamping down on the Scots and asserting itself on the boards. Freshman forward Andy Bucheit (Cincinnati, Ohio/LaSalle) hit several key shots down the stretch and Gratsch knocked down a clutch shot in the lane with 2:05 remaining to force a tie at 55, setting the stage for Rustad's heroics. The Tigers also got a huge performance from Walker off the bench with six points and 11 rebounds.
Harris was named Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.