An emotional final stretch for the Wabash Basketball team led to an NCAC runner-up and an impressive 18-10 record. The highlight of the NCAC tournament came in the semifinals, where the Little Giants got an emotional 87-63 win at Wooster.
“For me, it was exhilarating,” said Head Coach Mac Petty. Senior point guard Earl Rooks said the Wooster win is his best Wabash basketball memory. “It was the only time we beat them in my career, and we did it at Wooster,” Rooks said. Wabash shot 54% from the field and 50% from three-point range.
Unfortunately for the Little Giants, the same energy and shooting efficiency could not be carried over into the NCAC championship against Ohio Wesleyan, where Wabash lost 79-82. “It’s not that we weren’t up,” Petty said. “Ohio Wesleyan shot extremely well. They shot against us the way we shot against Wooster.”
Petty also pointed to little mistakes like missed lay-ups as reasons for the tough loss. But the Little Giants did achieve their goal of making it to the NCAC finals. “I think we did what we set out to do,” Petty said. “We would have liked to continue to play, but I’m happy for our players, especially our seniors.”
Rooks said the key to the team’s impressive final run was simply putting everything together, “We showed flashes all through the season, but we weren’t really consistent,” Rooks said. “We really came together.”
Petty was also impressed with the team’s turnover ratio and shooting down the stretch, two things he said they will continue to improve in the off-season. “If we have guys come back and improve on these things, we’ll be a good basketball team that other teams in the conference will have to look out for.”
A number of Little Giants had post-season awards, including All-NCAC honors for seniors Andrew Zimmer and Gary Simkus and honorable mention for sophomore Aaron Brock. “It shows we were a team with a lot of weapons,” Petty said.
Wabash will be losing a huge chunk of their offense with the departure of seniors Simkus, Zimmer, and Rooks, who combined for 29.7 points per game.
“I hate losing the three seniors,” Petty said. “I told the team they would be letting (the seniors) down if we didn’t build on what they did.”
But the team is encouraged by the returning talent, including Brock, who had a 21 point game against Wooster, and freshman Wes Smith, who averaged 10.9 points per game in his first collegiate season. The key will be improving on the success the Little Giants experienced this year.
“That’s what successful teams do,” Petty said. “They build on their success from the previous year.”