A road trip to play in front of the Chadwick Court home crowd is a daunting task for any team – doubly so for the DePauw Tigers. In front of an energized Wabash crowd and absent DePauw crowd, Wabash basketball delivered their sixth-straight win over their rivals.
Gavin Schippert ’26 was the hot hand for the Little Giants, sinking six out 10 threes. Despite a slow start missing his first two threes badly, Shippert was the gap in DePauw’s defense and stepped up to exploit the weakness. He knocked down four straight threes through the first half. He finished the game with a career-high 20 points.
“My freshman year, if I missed my first two, I probably would have just not shot the third one until maybe the second half,” said Shippert. “But the other guys have confidence in me, so I let the next one rip. I hit four in a row after that. I think the definition of shooting a good shot is one your teammates would want you to shoot.”
Schippert also energized the home crowd with a pair of hustle plays, by throwing the ball off DePauw players while in mid-air to save the possesion.
“I have a long baseball background and I actually came here to play baseball and basketball,” said Schippert. “Anytime I get to throw a fastball somewhere, I take a chance, especially at a Danny.”
With blistering accuracy from beyond the arc, the team quickly stacked a 25-point lead on the visiting Tigers.
But with such a hot start, there was only one direction for the Little Giants to go – down. Wabash hit a rough patch of shooting through the end of the first half and beginning of the second. As the Tigers cut the lead to under 10 points, the Wabash team changed tactics, getting into the paint and rebuilding the lead.
It was Vinny Buccilla ’25 and Josh Whack ’26 who stepped up to keep Wabash on top. Scoring 20 and 16 points respectively, Buccilla and Whack continued their season-long dominance with acrobatic finishes against physical defense.
“That just goes to speak to who our team is,” said Whack. “We never give up. We always fight. And that’s what we did out there today. We keep attacking when things fall apart, stick to who we are and the game plan and everything will follow.”
When the final buzzer sounded, Wabash led DePauw 84-65.
The Tigers collected more than one-third of their points from the charity stripe, where they shot 23 of 29. Little Giants went 6 of 9 from the line as they battled against their striped opponents.
The Little Giants finished the game with 53.3% shooting from the field, nearly 20 points ahead of the Tigers’ 35.7% shooting.
Defensively, Wabash was led by the astronomical efforts of Noah Hupmann ’25 who sent back five shots against DePauw as he extended his nationally-leading 67 blocks this season.
With the regular-season sweep over the Tigers secured, the team will look forward to the first week of February – which many of the players have dubbed “Championship week.”
“We just wanted to get tonight,” said Buccilla. “We knew tonight was going to have a lot of motion going towards it. But now we have a huge win at home. We’re just taking it one day at a time, and trusting in the process.”
Wabash, now 9-1 in the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC), stands in second after their victory. Their next matchup will be Wednesday, February 5 against Denison (9-0 NCAC). Ranked 15th in the nation, Denison is the only NCAC team to have beaten the Little Giants this season.
Three days later, Wabash will take to the road to face the conference’s third-ranked Wooster (7-3 NCAC). Although Wabash beat Wooster in their first matchup of the year at Chadwick Court, a February road game against the Fighting Scots offers no promise of a repeat.
After a tough start to the season, Wabash has battled their way through the conference schedule to put themselves in a place where winning the NCAC for the third time in four years is possible. With a six-game win streak on hand and 12 wins in the last 13 games, the Scarlet & White are right where they want to be entering the most crucial week of the season.
“We’ve got to see where we stand,” said Schippert. “So I’m excited. Denison beat us there at their place. But I think the growth throughout the whole season is important. We’re not the same team we were at the start of the year. We aren’t the same team that lost to Rose-Hulman. And every single game we just keep growing. I mean, seven different people scored 20 points this season, you don’t really see that on teams where they got to come here and beat us.”
If the Little Giants can clear both teams they will be in a prime position to claim the NCAC championship, as long as they don’t get upset later down the road. However, a loss to either will all but end the championship hopes.
“Every time you go out, you have an opportunity to not be playing for first,” said Head Basketball Coach Kyle Brumett. “When Dennison comes here, it’s for first place. We’ll worry about Wooster and then Ohio Wesleyan after we just figure out what happens with Denison. If we win then the next game becomes the biggest game.”