WOOSTER, Ohio — For the second straight year, the College of Wooster had the upper hand during the regular season games, but the Wittenberg Tigers were the ones cutting down the nets in the end. Wittenberg avenged a pair of narrow losses to the Scots during the 2005-06 regular season with a scintillating 71-69 victory on Wooster's home floor.
The win moved the sixth-ranked Tigers to 25-3 overall and put them into the NCAA Division III Tournament for the 24th time, a divisional record. It will be Wittenberg's fifth appearance in the last six years, and it is the sixth time in school history that the Tigers have captured the NCAC's automatic berth in the national tourney via an NCAC Tournament championship.
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, Daniel Russ and Kenny Brady. 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.
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.
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 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. The big scorers get most of the ink, but games like this are won with a total team effort, and Steffes stepped up at an opportune time.
Steffes finished with four points, three rebounds and two steals, and freshman guard Gregg Hill 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, 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 the game.
Wooster, which led just once in the game after making the first basket, was paced by Springfield native James Cooper, who finished with 20 points. In three games against his hometown team, the NCAC's leading scorer has poured in 65 points, including the game-winning three-pointer in the first meeting on Dec. 10. Tom Port and Tim Vandervaart added 12 points each, and the trio combined for eight assists among them.
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.
Wooster, which has been ranked among the top three nationally all season and first in each of the four NCAA Great Lakes Regional polls, dropped to 25-3 overall. The Scots, who were 15-1 in an NCAC regular season championship run, are considered a lock for the NCAA Division III Tournament. Selections will be announced on Sunday evening and the pairings will be released Monday morning by the NCAA.
Finally, Wittenberg Head Coach Bill Brown collected the 300th win of his career guiding his alma mater's men's basketball program. He is just the second Wittenberg coach to reach the 300-win plateau, and with a 300-69 record in his 13 seasons at the helm, he trails only current Western Carolina Head Coach Larry Hunter, who won 305 between 1977 and 1989.