Little Giants roll, Elmhurst survives, UMHB in OT

Mar 11, 2022
The Wabash team, and its fans, had plenty to celebrate after a win against Williams.
Photo by David Malamut, d3photography.com
 

Christopher Newport started the game on a 16-0 run, Wabash put its game away with a 20-0 run in the second half, Elmhurst survived a buzzer beater attempt by Calvin and Mary Hardin-Baylor won in overtime as those teams, plus WPI, Illinois Wesleyan, Marietta and Randolph-Macon advanced as well in Division III men's basketball NCAA Tournament action on March 11, 2022.

The night, which represented the latest round of NCAA Tournament play since 2019, set up four Elite Eight games for Saturday evening, with the winners to head to Fort Wayne, Indiana, for the Division III men's basketball Final Four.

Down 58-51 with 10:47 left, Elmhurst slowly began to claw away at Calvin's lead. The Bluejays trailed 63-59 with seven minutes left but buckets from Jonathan Zapinski and Dominic Genco brought Elmhurst even at 63-63 with 6:22 left. Marcus Bult put Calvin up 68-65 with a 3-pointer, but a 5-0 run from Lavon Thomas put Elmhurst in front 70-69 for the first time in the half with 4:30 left. After Calvin (22-9) pulled even with a free throw and the two teams traded 3-pointers, Elmhurst went in front for good with three minutes left.

Jake Rhode drove to the bucket and converted a three-point play to put the Bluejays up 76-63. Thomas followed with a jumper to give Elmhurst a 78-73 lead with 2:22 remaining. Calvin cut the Bluejays' lead down to two with 47 seconds left after a bucket from Emmett Warners. Following a Bluejays' miss, Calvin had the ball with 19 seconds remaining, but the Bluejays' defense forced an off-balance, off-target shot from Luke Morrison at the buzzer, giving Elmhurst the two-point victory.

After a back-and-forth first half, Wabash rode a 20-0 run to blow the game open and ended up running away from Williams, 73-59. With the Ephs (19-5) going all-out to stop Jack Davidson from getting shots off, Davidson dished out eight assists. Instead, Ahmoni Jones scored 20 points, Kellen Schreiber added 19 and Tyler Watson 14 to go with nine assists.

Wabash had trailed most of the first half before putting together a late flurry to take a 32-29 lead into the locker room at halftime.

"We knew these guys were going to be different than what we played against and they did a really good job of slowing the pace," said Wabash coach Kyle Brumett. "I felt like when we came out to start the second half we were able to increase the temp and feel out. We talk about the first 5 to 6 minutes ... our guards and our starters trying to feel out the game and relay to the other guys what is open, but today I felt like it took us the first half."

The Little Giants trailed entering the run, but did not trail the rest of the way. Jones started it off with a 3-pointer and ended up scoring 10 of the 20 points to turn a 43-42 deficit into a 62-43 lead. 

Williams did everything possible to keep Wabash leading scorer and Player-of-the-Year candidate Jack Davidson from scoring. The Ephs limited Davidson to 11 points but the senior guard took advantage of the defensive focus by finding other Wabash players to carry the scoring load. The Little Giants forced 17 Williams turnovers that led to 20 total points for Wabash. Wabash will face Illinois Wesleyan, which got 23 points from Matthew Leritz and 19 from Luke Yoder, who shot 7-for-9 from the floor.

Colin McNamara scored on backdoor cut with 16.3 seconds remaining and John Adams deflected RPI's final bid in the waning seconds as WPI advanced following a pulsating 56-55 victory over Transit Trophy rival RPI. It's the first trip to the Elite 8 for WPI since 1985. 

Knotted at 51, Kahleb Downing drained a 3-pointer from the right wing to put WPI ahead by three with 2:24 remaining. After both teams had empty possessions, RPI got within one when Will Rubin parlayed a WPI turnover into a fast break layup following a Dom Black steal and feed.

Worcester's Engineers misfired on the ensuing possession and RPI regained the advantage with 34.4 second left when Rubin took advantage of open space and drained a layup to put RPI ahead 55-54. After a time out and an RPI foul, WPI executed a perfectly designed inbounds play where freshman Aidan Callahan inbounded to John Lowther, who found a backdoor cutting McNamara whose shots rolled and bounced around the rim multiple times before dropping through with 16.3 seconds remaining. Following a timeout, RPI moved into the front court and missed a 3-pointer from the top of the key, but the scramble for the rebound resulted in a jump ball with the possession arrowing favoring Troy's Engineers with 1.6 seconds left. Neither team called time out and Adams deflected the inbounds pass into the waiting arms of McNamara to secure WPI's spot in the Elite Eight.

Ty Prince scored 27 points and Josiah Johnson added 23, including a huge 3-pointer from the wing with 10 seconds left in overtime to break the final tie and lift Mary Hardin-Baylor to an 89-84 win at Case Western Reserve. The big shot capped a dramatic night in which the Cru needed Carson Hammond to hit two pressure-packed free throws with 0.7 seconds left in regulation just to get his team to overtime. Mitch Prendergast gave Case (20-7) all he had, going for 32 points in 41 minutes, including 8-for-15 shooting from 3-point range.

Illinois Wesleyan led by as many as nine against Wheaton (Ill.), but saw the Thunder trim the home team's advantage to three on Nick Schiavello's 3-pointer with 3:02 to go. Luke Yoder sliced his way through the paint before hitting a jumper with just over two minutes to play to push the Titans ahead, 73-68. After a Wheaton timeout, Cory Noe swiped the ball and sent the Titans off running. Yoder dribbled across the baseline before finding a wide open Cody Mitchell on a cut through the lane for a dunk, upping the advantage to eight. Wheaton went on to answer with a Nyomeye Adom 3-pointer, but a huge tip out by Leritz on an offensive rebound led to a pair of free throws by Yoder to put IWU up six. The Thunder tacked on another Adom bucket with 16 seconds to play, but the Titans held on for a 77-73 triumph.

Jason Aigner drained seven 3-pointers, including five in the first half, and led the way with 23 points as Christopher Newport rolled past Stockton 93-54. Sophomore Jahn Hines posted 13 of his 19 points in the opening half, and senior Darian Peterson recorded a double-double with ten points and ten rebounds. The Captains, now 27-2, held a 50-27 advantage at the intermission, and pushed the lead to as many as 40 in the final minutes of the second half, 90-50.

"We got off to an amazing start and were able to build on it through the whole game," coach John Krikorian said. "I thought our intensity and focus never shifted. Even though we had some foul trouble, we got some really strong performances off our bench to maintain the lead."

Stockton's season ended with a mark of 26-5, and the Ospreys had a ten-game winning streak snapped by the Captains. DJ Campbell scored 12 points and Kyion Flanders added 11.

Marietta returned to the Elite 8, surviving a back-and-forth challenge from Oswego State to get by the Lakers 89-81. The Lakers (27-3) went on a 17-4 run to take a 56-47 lead with 13:26 to play. Devin Green sparked the run with two 3-point baskets and eight points and freshman Ahkee Anderson closed out the run with a 3-pointer. But Marietta answered with a 12-2 run of its own to go up 59-58 and Lukas Isaly had nine points in the final 4:52 as Marietta salted the game away. Isaly finished with 17, as did Tim Kreeger, while Jason Ellis led all scorers with 28.

Miles Mallory scored a game-high 26 points and Will Coble and Buzz Anthony added 18 as Randolph-Macon returned to the Elite 8, ending Mass-Dartmouth's run of comeback victories with a 92-69 win. The top-ranked Yellow Jackets reached the 30-win mark for the first time in program history and held Marcus Azor to just 20 points. Mallory added an incredible 17 rebounds and blocked six shots in the win.

Meanwhile, just getting to have a Sweet 16 round for the first time since 2019 was a big night for Division III basketball. Williams coach Kevin App sums up what Division III teams like his Ephs and others have gone through over the past two years: