Defensive pressure by the Wabash basketball team in the final six minutes of Tuesday’s North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament game against Allegheny College led the Little Giants to a 73-68 win over the Gators. The victory sends the Little Giants into the semifinals on Thursday against Wittenberg in Springfield, Ohio.
The Little Giants led by as many as 14 points in the first half, only to see Allegheny go on a 15-3 run to take a two-point lead with 11:28 minutes left in the contest. The Gators pushed their advantage to five points before the Wabash defense took command of the game.
Wabash opened what would end as a 15-2 run with a Nate Bell (JR/Ft. Wayne, IN/Concordia Lutheran) steal and eventual layup. Another steal, this time by sophomore George Colakovic (Munster, IN/Munster) led to two more points when Colakovic drove to the hoop to cut the Gators’ lead to one with 5:19 showing on the clock. It was the last lead that Allegheny would own in the game.
The Little Giants came up with another steal, this time on the most exciting play of the game. Senior Zeljko Gavranovic (Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina/St. Mary’s, AZ) knocked the basketball away from Allegheny’s Casey McCloskey, then jumped to save the ball from going out of bounds. He snared the loose ball while heading over the sideline and heaved a pass down court to fellow senior Matt Storm (Anderson, IN/Lapel). Storm finished the play with a layup to give Wabash a 53-52 lead.
Wabash made it a four-point advantage with 4:09 left in the game when the Little Giants took a charge at the defensive end of the floor and converted it into three points on a bomb by Storm. A layup by Gavranovic after a defensive rebound by Storm pushed the lead to six. After the only points for the Gators during the run came off of a J.J. Wilson drive and layup, Storm responded with two free throws, then stole the ball from Wilson on the inbound and found Adonis Joseph (SO/Mishawaka, IN/Mishawaka) for a spinning layup to give Wabash a 62-54 lead. Wilson would end the Wabash run with a three-pointer at the 1:41 mark, but the Little Giants hit 10 of 14 free throws in the final 1:28 of the contest to earn a berth in the conference semifinals against the number one seed and finals host Wittenberg.
Storm led the Little Giants with 18 points. Joseph tossed in 17. Eleven of the 12 Wabash players that saw time in the game scored in the victory, including Bell’s nine points and Colakovic’s seven-point effort off the bench.
Matt Magnusen led the Gators with 24 points. Matt Majzlik tossed in 13 and Chase McKim added 12.
Wabash will play Wittenberg in the second semifinal game in Springfield, Ohio at 7:45 p.m. on Thursday, February 26. Wooster and Ohio Wesleyan play in the first contest at 5:30 p.m.