Little Giants falter in 73–65 home loss to Denison
The winter break has not been kind to Wabash basketball. They faced conference front-runner Denison at Chadwick Court on Wednesday, January 3. The Little would fall to the Big Red 73-65, extending their holiday losing streak to five games.
Denison’s usually mediocre three-point game was beyond excellent for the first half as they set up a 13-point lead on the back of 53.33% shooting from three. Then in the second, Denison abandoned the three ball and pounded the post to finish out the contest.
“This has been an ongoing problem in this stretch,” said Head Basketball Coach Kyle Brumett. “We have not stuck to our defensive principles or the game plan. And we’re really inconsistent offensively right now.”
But as much as they struggled on defense, they lost because of their offensive failures. As a team Wabash shot 4-23 from range, and had no confidence throwing up shots as the game wound to a close.
The regular combo of Ahmoni Jones ’24, Sam Comer ’24 and Vinny Bucilla ’25 were noticeably below their scoring averages during the game, while still taking a combined 24 shots, forcing Wabash to look for points from other guys.
Avery Beaver ’24 and Nate Matelic ’27 led Wabash in scoring with 18 and 13 points respectively. This continues the trend of the Little Giants needing to fill out scoring with a different recipe from the one that brought them the North Coast Athletic Conference Championship last season.
Over the last five games, inconsistency has torn the legs out from under the Wabash team who have fallen deeper and deeper into a rut. The team hasn’t been able to get enough of the top scorers to perform together during games, while the standout performances from Beaver, Matelic and Rich Brooks ’26 haven’t been enough to get the team past the final buzzer with a winning score.
Moving forward the Little Giants need to find consistent scoring leaders from night-to-night. Jones is the obvious choice, but has been reluctant to take control of the game in the last few outings. Bucilla and Comer are the two others that the team would normally look to. Whatever it takes to get them going, Wabash won’t be winning anytime soon if they can’t get back into the flow of the season.
This isn’t all bad news, however, as the team has been facing the hardest stretch of their schedule over break and a perfect record would be better than anyone expected. Also, they have been mostly facing non-conference opponents which do not affect NCAC standings. The team certainly has a chance to get things back on track and finish at the top of the conference, but they will need to win almost all of their remaining games to secure first place in the NCAC.
The team stands at 7-7 (3-2 NCAC) with Wooster and Ohio Wesleyan scheduled next, with no easy wins lined up until January 13, when they face Hiram. This means the Little Giants will have to break their losing streak the hard way or fall out of conference contention less than halfway through.