Wabash Wins Third-Straight Game, Prevails vs. Denison and Rose
Friday, November 19, Wabash College Basketball faced off against the number three ranked Marietta College Pioneers in the 2021 Great Lakes Invitational. Wabash ended up losing the game 99-92. Although they were unable to win, the Little Giants played extremely well. Ahmoni Jones ‘23 led both teams in scoring with 24 points, while pulling in 7 rebounds. Kellen Schreiber ‘22 put up 20 points with 4 rebounds and 2 assists. Turnovers controlled a game where Marietta had a +1 advantage margin in the game. Both teams shot poorly from beyond the arch with the Little Giants going 8-29 and the Pioneers going 5-18. Wabash committed 26 fouls in the game, but the whole Great Lakes Invitational featured very excessive foul calling.
Saturday, November 20, the Little Giants beat #13 ranked Emory College, 98-90. Wabash scored first and held the lead for the rest of the game. The Eagles certainly put up a fight, but the Little Giants held the momentum throughout the entire game. Davidson led scoring with 29 points. Tyler Watson put up 19 points, while adding 6 assists. Jesse Hall ‘25 led the bench in scoring with 14 points. The Little Giants had 12 turnovers in this game and committed 22 fouls, but once again the foul calling was a little too severe in the game. The difference in the game came down to 3-point shooting. Wabash went 12-27 from deep, not their best performance but good enough to get the win. Emory on the other hand shot 3-19 (15.9%). The Eagles made up for some of their shooting at the free-throw line going 25-28, compared to Wabash 20-23.
This was definitely a strong outing for Wabash Basketball – beating a ranked team in this fashion is no easy task. The invitational was a great opportunity for the Little Giants, who really found their stride, while facing off against the two ranked teams.
Sunday, November 28, the Little Giants won their first conference matchup against Denison University, 92-87. Wabash shot 34-61 from the field and 8-18 from three point range. Denison hit one less basket while taking nine more shots, going 33-70. This was due to the Big Red shooting significantly more threes going 11- 27. Davidson led scoring for the Little Giants with 24 points, hitting 64.7% of his shots. He also had three rebounds and five assists. This earned him the NCAC Player of the Week. Schreiber and Watson both scored 22 points. Jones had the Little Giant’s first double-double of the season with 15 points and 10 rebounds.
Then on Wednesday, December 1, Wabash defeated the Rose-Hulman College Fighting Engineers at Chadwick court, winning 67-64. The team struggled with shooting early on, trailing by an average of 6 for the entire first half. This was due in part to extremely physical play in the paint with more than a few missed foul calls. Wabash eventually found its groove, and started taking the momentum away from the Fighting Engineers by the middle of the second half. The team managed to hold onto the lead for the rest of the game, eventually going up three with five seconds left on the clock thanks to Watson hitting two free throws. As a team the Little Giants went 10-33 from deep, which is the most three-point misses they’ve had in any game thus far. The team had 20 turnovers in this game, which is also their most so far. Where the team really shined was in rebounding, pulling in 41 rebounds for +12 against the Fighting Engineers. The team only committed 11 fouls in the game. Two of these fouls came from more than questionable flopping calls. Davidson once again led scoring with 16 points. Jones had 15 with 9 rebounds as a force on the glass and the interior. The fans at Chadwick witnessed a special moment late in the first half when Davidson hit his 536th career free throw – breaking the Wabash Career free-throw record. With nineteen games left in the season, Davidson is sure to extend the record by a considerable amount.
“It’s been a good couple of weeks for us I mean, we started out the Hanover loss was tough. But since then we lost at Marietta and it was a tough game for us, but we played well. We just didn’t get some things to go our way. The next night we bounced back at Emory, which was huge for us, winning against a ranked team. And then we’re just trying to keep that momentum going,” said Davidson. “[The] record was pretty cool and something I’m proud of but more importantly, we got the win.”
The Little Giants have a record of 4-2 (1-0). Their defense has been strong in the last few games, while the offense has been exceptional, as they have scored over 90 in three of the last four games. Their win against the then 13th ranked Emory was a great moment for the team. If the team keeps it up they will end the season with a solid record and good chances in the NCAC tournament.
Tomorrow, Wabash will play a conference game at home against the Oberlin College Yeomen. The Yeomen are 2-4 (0-1) as of now, and will be coming into Crawfordsville on the 2nd leg of a 2 day, 2 game roadtrip. They played The College of Wooster yesterday. The Little Giants will step on Chadwick Court for this conference battle tomorrow at 2 pm.