No dream ending for Thunder as they lose to Washington U. 55-52
This was called the "Sectional of Death," and it killed Wheaton College's national championship dreams.
Defending NCAA Division III champion Washington University, ranked second nationally, held on to defeat No. 3 Wheaton 55-52 Friday night at King Arena in Wheaton. The St. Louis school's reward is to play No. 1 St. Thomas tonight, also in Wheaton, in the Elite Eight.
"There was nothing we could do about it," Wheaton senior Kent Raymond said of the early meeting of highly ranked teams. "That's the way the brackets were. ... We had nothing to complain about whatsoever. We were playing in front of our home crowd. The championship has got to go through the defending national champs anyway. We gave it our best shot. We just fell a little short."
Washington (26-2) led most of the game, by as much as 9 early in the second half. With points for both teams as hard to come by as tickets for the sold-out game, the Thunder (26-4) gradually whittled the lead down to 1, then finally took the lead 52-51 on an Andy Wiele putback with 3:08 to play. It was the last time Wheaton scored.
"I thought it was a great Division III basketball game," Washington coach Mark Edwards said. "I imagine people expected more offense from both teams, but what they saw was great defense ... and that's basketball too. In championship play sometimes that's what you have to have to win."
Sean Wallis hit a pair of free throws with 2:46 to go to put Washington back in front, and a Tyler Nading basket off a Wallis feed with 2:06 left ended the scoring for both teams.
Wheaton appeared to be in good position to set up for a tying 3-pointer when Raymond and Washington's Aaron Thompson lunged for an inbounds pass and one of them knocked it out of bounds with 14.6 seconds to go and the nearest referee pointing Wheaton's way. Then the referees conferred and reversed the call.
"I think the official who called it right away was trying to call it Wash. U. ball, but he pointed the wrong way," Thompson said. "That was my understanding. That was a tough call. I honestly don't know if it went off me or if it went off Kent. It was one of those split-second things that happen. Hopefully, they made the right call."
After Wallis, a senior from north suburban Northbrook, missed the front end of a 1-and-1, Wheaton got one last chance, and it got the ball into the hands of its All-American, Raymond.
"I rushed it a little bit," Raymond said. "I lost my dribble in the backcourt there and threw it up to (Wheaton center Andy) Wiele and was able to get the handoff. Unfortunately, I kind of wanted to get a little bit of a head of steam dribbling up the court. I just wasn't able to do that because I mishandled. I forced it, but at the same time, clock's running down, you've got a couple of people draped on you. You've just kind of got to let it fly at that point."
Raymond's 3-point shot missed everything, going out of bounds with 1.2 seconds left.
Raymond finished with 22 points on 8-of-19 shooting, and Ben Panner added 20 for Wheaton.
"It was a battle all game," Panner said. "We knew that they weren't going to give up and we weren't going to give up no matter what. It was a 40-minute battle. We gave our all. It was a great game."
Wallis led Washington with 18 points and Thompson scored 14.
"It was tough walking off that court with all those fans there," Raymond said. "Our mantra as a team all year has been 'together.' We say it before we go out to play. It's been a fun year. We've had some incredible accomplishments: winning the CCIW, winning the (CCIW) tournament, making the Sweet Sixteen. I never played with a better group of guys than I did this season, and I'll truly and sincerely miss that. I'll just absolutely miss that camaraderie."