By Claire Ludlow
Special to the Denisonian
After enduring an incredible offensive performance that garnered the Wooster Fighting Scots over 100 points, DU’s men’s basketball season came to an end in the first round of the NCAC tournament.
The Fighting Scots came out blazing hot and kept up the pace to finish with a 106-68 final score. Tallying 60 points in the paint, they nearly outscored Denison with just that statistic alone. Briggs King ‘15 and Brad Wollard ‘15 paced the Big Red with 16 points and 7 rebounds, respectively, in their final showing on the court.
While recalling their 76-72 win over the Fighting Scots at Wooster earlier in February, John Cheng ‘16 said, “We had beaten them at their place and were ready to do it again.” In that game, the Big Red shot nearly 50 percent from the field and held Wooster to below 45 percent, leading them to one of their biggest wins of the season.
But this time around, Denison’s 31.6 percent field goal percentage was not enough to run with Wooster’s aggressiveness on both ends of the floor. Cheng also mentioned that Wooster’s sharp shooting from the first tip created an early deficit from which Denison could not recover – at the half, Wooster already had a 27-point lead.
David Meurer believed that the whole squad needed to change the way they prepared and played against schools that should be around their same level.
“The team, players and coaches alike, need[ed] to take a smarter approach to the game.” He suggested that strength and smarts were a significant factor in “games [they] should not have lost.”
Meurer is looking forward to growing stronger as a team in their coming seasons, and they will need another solid season from him and other upperclassmen. Bret Woolard, who was second on the team behind Meurer in points per game, will return next season to build on what he achieved this year.
This past weekend, Wooster overcame Wabash in the semifinal round, winning 68-55, but dropped 69-56 in the NCAC tournament championship against Depauw.