The Tiger men's basketball team went into the NCAC tournament with a head of steam, having won six straight games, including a defeat of nationally ranked eventual regular season champion Wooster on Feb. 15. Unfortunately, that momentum didn't carry over into the tourney as the Tigers struggled to defeat Denison on Tuesday in the quarterfinals before falling to No. 3 seed Allegheny in the semifinals on Friday night at Wooster.
The week started with a hard-fought 80-74 victory over visiting Denison. Wittenberg had won the previous two meetings 70-48 and 75-51, but the seventh-seeded Big Red gave the second-seeded and defending NCAC tournament champion Tigers all they could handle in the third meeting, forcing eight lead changes, including one as late as the 10:15 mark of the second half.
After that, however, Wittenberg slowly pulled away for the win. Senior forward Kevin Longley (Vandalia, Ohio/Butler) scored eight points in the final six minutes of the game to finish with a season-high 20 tallies, while junior guard Rod Emmons (South Bend, Ind./John Adams) added four free throws in the final 23 seconds to finally seal the deal.
Wittenberg got 20 points from Longley, 19 from freshman center Daniel Russ (Louisville, Ky./Trinity) and 17 tallies from senior center B.J. Harris (Riverside, Ohio/Stebbins). Those three players made 19-of-23 shots from the field as they completely dominated the paint.
Against Allegheny, the Tigers dominated the rebounding category 40-26, made 10 more shots while shooting 52 percent from the field (compared to 38 percent for Allegheny) and also hit 80 percent of their free throw attempts. The difference in a 73-72 Allegheny upset was three-point shooting as the Gators hit an NCAC tournament record 13 from beyond the arc, and free throw shooting as the Gators made 18-of-21, including six straight in the final 2:51 of the game.
And thus, for the first time in three years, the Tigers will be watching the NCAC tournament title game from the sidelines. The Gators had previously dashed Wittenberg's hopes of a third consecutive NCAC regular season championship on Feb. 8 with a 66-63 victory in Meadville, Pa.
The Gators got out of the gate with a three-pointer just one minute into play and eventually stretched the lead to 38-22 with a 13-0 run. Wittenberg responded with a 12-4 run to close the half and came back to take a 50-48 lead with 11:25 remaining. The lead see-sawed back and forth the rest of the way before Wittenberg misfired on two shots in the final 12 seconds.
For the game, Wittenberg once again got almost all of its points in the paint as Harris led the way with 16 points and seven rebounds in his final game in the Red and White. Sophomore forward Andy Bucheit (Cincinnati, Ohio/LaSalle) provided a lift off the bench with 14 points after missing Tuesday's win due to illness and Russ and Longley each added 10 points. Longley led the Tigers on the boards with nine rebounds.
Roundup: Tigers Season Comes to an End in NCAC Tournament
Posted: Mar 05, 2003