The Wittenberg University men’s basketball team went into play last week with a chance to win the North Coast Athletic Conference title outright, but they did anything but that.
The Tigers lost to both Wabash and Hiram, which dropped their record to 17-7 overall and 13-3 in conference play. The losses also dropped the Tigers to the number two seed in the tournament while Wooster claims the top overall seed and their seventh straight regular season conference title.
“I think we ran into two teams who were better than us on the day we played them,” said senior student-coach Jimmy Colloton. “Wabash is a very difficult place to play and if Hiram plays like they did on Saturday, they are going to be one tough team to eliminate. Looking at ourselves, we need to focus on improving our rebounding if we want to make any noise in the postseason.”
In both losses the Tigers were outrebounded badly. At Wabash, the Tigers allowed four offensive rebounds on one possession on their way to losing the rebounding battle 38-26, with 12 of those 38 rebounds being offensive rebounds by the Little Giants.
The story was much the same against the Hiram Terriers. The rebounding margin was 51-39 in favor of the Terriers with 21 of those 51 rebounds being offensive rebounds for Hiram.
Although the Tigers are disappointed with their performances last week, they aren’t letting the losses hang over their head.
“We just need to forget about the two losses and move on,” said Colloton. “Although we are disappointed, the regular season is over and we need to regroup quickly to try to make a run in the tournament.”
The Tigers are going to put a lot of focus in the practices leading up to the tournament on rebounding and playing a full 40 minutes of basketball.
“We didn’t play a full game the last two times we put on our uniforms,” said Colloton. “That needs to change is we want a chance to win the tournament.”
(Brian Alspaugh / s11.balspaugh@wittenberg.edu)
