North Central, Wheaton ousted from NCAA Tournament
Yielding a rare second-half rally, the North Central College men’s basketball team saw its stay in the NCAA Division III Tournament come to a close Friday in a hard-fought 58-55 decision to Wittenberg University at the College of Wooster’s Timken Gymnasium.
The Cardinals led by as many as 9 points in the second half before allowing Wittenberg to go on a 9-2 run in the final minutes and put to an end one of the finest seasons in the North Central program’s history.
“I can’t say enough about our basketball team,” said Cardinals coach Todd Raridon. “I’m very, very proud of them. To have gone through and won the conference regular-season and tournament titles and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, and how our leadership has been, they’ve really done something for North Central. They’ve raised the bar for our program, and that’s what we needed.”
North Central (22-8) trailed early, as the Tigers led by as many as 7 points before an 11-0 Cardinals run, including 7 points from Aaron Tiknis, moved North Central in front 18-13. Wittenberg rallied and tied the contest at 22-22, and the lead was passed back and forth twice before two straight 3-pointers by Kevin Gillespie gave the Cardinals some breathing room.
North Central owned a 4-point lead in the final seconds of the first half, but Wittenberg’s Michael Cooper drove the lane for a bucket just before the buzzer to narrow the Cardinals’ halftime lead to 32-30.
The Cardinals scored the first 7 points of the second period, though Wittenberg (24-6) responded with seven points of their own to narrow the gap to 2 points once again. North Central put up six straight points over the next three minutes to take a 45-37 lead with 11:56 left.
North Central owned a 47-39 edge before Wittenberg began to mount a rally, scoring the next 7 points to cut the deficit to a single point at 47-46. Landon Gamble fed Vince Kmiec for a layup to stop the bleeding, but the Tigers scored the next seven points to take their first lead of the second half at 53-49.
The Cardinals narrowed the gap to 2 points on two occasions in the final two minutes, trailing by a 57-55 count with 40 seconds to play after Tiknis sank two free throws. Facing a 3-point deficit on the game’s final possession, the Cardinals looked for an opening from 3-point range, but Gillespie’s long-range buzzer-beater was off the mark.
North Central tied the program’s single-season record for victories and was making its first appearance in the round of 16 in the NCAA Tournament.
Wisconsin-Whitewater 67, Wheaton 56:
Wheaton College lost to Wisconsin-Whitewater 67-56 in the NCAA Tournament Sectional Semifinal, ending its year with a 23-7 overall record, making just its third NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearance in the Division III Tournament.
Wheaton senior Tim McCrary concluded his brilliant career with a team-high 15 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists. Jeremy Pflederer scored 13 points, on 5-of-7 shooting from the field. Junior guard Nate Serenius scored 12 points off the Thunder bench.
Alex Edmunds scored 16 points, with 6 rebounds off the UW-Whitewater bench. Chris Davis scored 14 points, with 9 rebounds for the hosts.
“One of the tough things after a loss is to acknowledge how well your opponent played and I thought Whitewater was fantastic tonight,” Wheaton coach Mike Schauer said. “We had a great season, sometimes people don’t realize how hard it is to get to the Sweet Sixteen and we had a great run, but this great group of guys.”
The Warhawks jumped out to a 13-4 lead over the first 5½ minutes and UW-Whitewater led for the entire first half.
Wheaton outscored the Warhawks 12-5 over the first seven minutes of the second half to trim the hosts’ lead to 41-32. Wheaton cut Whitewater’s lead to 44-40 with 9:40 remaining. However, the Warhawks responded with an 8-2 run to extend its lead to 52-42 with seven minutes left in the game and the hosts were able to close out the game for the win, never letting Wheaton get closer than a 4-point deficit.