North Central defeats Wheaton
Kevin Gillespie didn’t want to give the NCAA a chance to turn down North Central College’s men’s basketball team.
Gillespie sparked a 24-5 second-half run to give the Cardinals a 75-58 victory against rival Wheaton College in Saturday night’s CCIW Tournament championship game at Gregory Arena in Naperville.
The tournament championship brings with it an automatic berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament.
“We weren’t sure with the win yesterday (in the league tourney semifinals) if we could still get into the NCAA Tournament with a loss tonight, but we didn’t want to leave it up to debate or voting or anything,” the Cardinals senior guard said, calling the near-capacity, bipartisan crowd the biggest and loudest in his four seasons. “This is the biggest win in my career and most of these other guys. Nobody at North Central’s won the conference outright and then the conference tournament in the same year, which is big for us.”
It was a back-and-forth ballgame for the first 23 minutes, but Gillespie gave North Central (20-7) the lead for good at 38-37 with 16:21 to play, the first of 9 straight Cardinals points.
“The second half I thought Kevin Gillespie stepped up and got us going big-time,” Cardinals coach Todd Raridon said. “He hit some huge shots for us, got passes to guys, they hit big shots. Once Kevin started hitting, it just seemed like everything fell into place for the other guys. You get more comfortable when things happen like that.”
The Thunder (21-6) was still within 10 points when the Cardinals reeled off 3-pointers by Gillespie, Aaron Tiknis, Vince Kmiec and Derek Raridon on consecutive possessions, Raridon’s giving North Central a 20-point lead with 8:56 to play.
“That really ended it,” Wheaton coach Mike Schauer said. “Gillespie’s a senior and a great player, made a lot of plays. Give them credit. I could talk about the mistakes we made, but it really diminishes the fact they played so well.”
“I told myself going into this game that I needed to step up and carry the team and lead us into a victory,” Gillespie said. “Luckily the shots were going down tonight, and then when I started making my shots they had to come out a little bit more and I could penetrate and kick to my teammates and they were knocking it down. Once it gets to that point it’s too easy and too fun to play, it’s just a fun game.”
While the Cardinals were bombing away at one end of the court, the Thunder was struggling at the other. Few Wheaton shots dropped, and North Central rebounders made sure the Thunder didn’t get any second chances.
“That’s what started it all, actually, was us stopping them,” Gillespie said. “If we come down and score 3 but they score again, it kind of makes it up, but when we went on that run, it was demoralizing for them and a big momentum-builder for us. It was huge.”
Wheaton defeated North Central in both regular-season meetings this season, and the Cardinals remembered how the Thunder came back from a 13-point deficit to take the first game. Even with a big lead there was no let-up.
“On the court it felt like it was still a really close game,” Gillespie said. “I looked up and we were up 20, I was really, like, perplexed and, like, how did that happen?”
Gillespie scored with 22 points and dished 5 assists. Tiknis added 11 points and 9 rebounds, and Charlie Rosenberg came off the bench to give the Cardinals a first-half spark, finishing with 10 points and 8 rebounds.
For the Thunder, Jeremy Pflederer scored 13 points, Tyler Peters had 12, Tim McCrary added 11 and Spencer Schultze 10.
While the Cardinals only wonder where and who they will play when the NCAA announces the tournament pairings at 11 a.m. Monday, the Thunder has to hope it gets an at-large bid.
“I think we should be in,” said Schauer, noting the Thunder’s difficult schedule. “If the objective is to pick the 19 most-deserving at-large-bid teams in the country, we’re one of those.”