Wabash’s basketball team has a favorable schedule as it hits the home stretch of the North Coast Athletic Conference regular season.
The Little Giants have six regular season games, and four of those are at Chadwick Court. The home stretch begins this week when Wabash hosts Earlham 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, then hosts conference-leading Wooster at 2 p.m. Sunday.
With the top four teams in the conference standings hosting opening round home games in the NCAC Postseason Tournament, Wabash is tied for second with Allegheny in the league standings with 7-3 marks. Wittenberg, Ohio Wesleyan and Hiram all are just one game behind Wabash and Allegheny. Ohio Wesleyan has four home games remaining, while Allegheny plays four of its last six games on the road, and Hiram and Wittenberg each have three road games remaining.
“Our schedule is very favorable for us, now we just have to take advantage of that favorable schedule,” Wabash coach Mac Petty said.
The Little Giants entered the month looking to be 13-5 by the end of January. Wabash fell one game short of that mark and will take a 12-6 record into Wednesday’s game. After this week, the Little Giants will travel to Ohio Wesleyan Feb. 10, host Oberlin Feb. 13, travel to Wittenberg Feb. 17, then round out their regular season by hosting Kenyon Feb. 20.
“This week is very, very, very crucial,” Wabash sophomore guard AZ Zinnerman (above left) said. “We can’t afford to lose and we have to go full throttle.”
The Little Giants are 7-1 in home games this season. Wabash had its perfect home record ended with last Wednesday’s 73-67 loss to Ohio Wesleyan.
Zinnerman said small crowds support the Little Giants during road games, but that isn’t the case at Chadwick Court.
“I don’t even know if the crowd realizes how much of an impact they make in our home games,” Zinnerman said. “When we have home games, we have the Chadwick Crazies out there harassing the opponents. And hopefully we can take some of that swagger from home games and go into road games with just as much confidence.”
The Little Giants will enter Wednesday’s game with some confidence after Saturday’s 52-47 win at Kenyon. It was Wabash’s second straight road victory. Still, sophomore guard Brian Shelbourne knows there is plenty of work to be done.
“Obviously we have to win these games to get the highest seed possible in the tournament,” Shelbourne (right) said. “But more than that, we want to be playing our best ball going into the tournament, and playing home games is the best way to do that.”
Food before game:
Twenty-four students who are going on a mission trip to Botswana, Africa on their Spring Break will have a spaghetti dinner 5:30-7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Cost is $5 a meal or flat donations. The meal will be in the Allen Center Classroom.
Montgomery County flavor:
Southmont graduate and Wabash junior Ben Burkett won’t be the only Montgomery County product on the floor Wednesday. Also playing will be North Montgomery graduates Kyle Calder and A.J. Sutherlin, who are sophomores at Earlham. Sutherlin leads Earlham with 18 points per game. Calder leads the Quakers with 53 assists.