Sometimes Chadwick Court at Wabash College provides the ultimate advantage for the Little Giants. Sunday night was yet another example of that when Wabash hosted the Rose Hulman Engineers. The visiting Engineers didn’t stand a chance in the game thanks to stellar play by the Little Giant defense and combined with some hot shooting by Wabash. In the end the final score read, and this isn’t a typo, Wabash 84, Rose Hulman 42 in what was the largest margin of victory for the Little Giants since 2018.
For the game the visitors made just 14-56 (25%) of their shots, just 4-20 (20%) from the three point line, and turned the ball over 18 times which resulted in 31 Little Giant points.
“I have to give a lot of credit to Coach Sully (Pat Sullivan) for getting these guys ready to play,” Wabash coach Kyle Brumett said. “We weren’t happy with how we played in the first few games against Anderson then in the tournament over in Illinois. We’ve been on them pretty hard as of late and our older guys responded to that. Rose Hulman has a very young team (13 freshman) and they won at Wooster which is one of the hardest places in the country to win. That got our guys attention and the guys followed our game plan it was very good.”
In the first half Ahmoni Jones shots barely made a sound as they went through the net. The senior at the break had 20 points on 6-9 from three. For good measure in the second half, Jones added one more swish from beyond the arc to end the game with 23 points on 7-12 from the floor and 7-10 from three. Those seven made threes were a career-high for the senior. In the early parts of the season Brumett noted how he’s been wanting Jones to be more aggressive with his shot and it’s safe to say Jones listened.
“I struggled shooting over in Illinois and I wanted to stop shooting because I thought it was hurting us,” Jones said. “But my teammates and coaches both told me to just keep shooting and trusting my shot. They told me that we’re a much better team when I’m confident in my shot. I was certainly confident in my shot and it really felt good to see all of those go through the net. Having the step-back fall away three was definitely the highlight of the night for me and that’s when I knew it was going to be a good night.”
Jones added six rebounds with his 23 points. Sam Comer ended with 14 points and 6-10 from the floor while 11 other Little Giants scored a bucket. As a team Wabash shot 32-65 (49.2%) from the floor and 11-28 (39.3%) from three and 9-10 from the free-throw line. The out-rebounded Rose Hulman 41-38.
For the second straight game, Wabash has held their opponents under 50 total points. Everyone knows the fire power that the Little Giants have offensively but now it seems like they’re turning a corner on the defensive side of the ball too.
“We haven’t been a very good defensive team over the years,” Brumett said with a chuckle. “We’ve hung our hats on being very good offensively and it helps that when you have guys like Jack Davidson and Tyler Watson. Last year I never thought we hit a defensive stride where we could use that as our identity. Playing a good defensive style I think fits this team. We have a lot of hard playing guys and that’s going to be our calling card this year. I’m proud that these guys are embracing that style of basketball.”
The win for the Little Giants sees them improve to 4-2 on the season. They now shift their focus to the beginning of North Coast Athletic Conference play where they’ll be back at Chadwick Court to take on rival DePauw (3-2).
