DePauw outscored Wabash by 14 in the second half of an 84-70 win for the Tigers on Thursday night at Chadwick Court.
Tied 35-35 at the half, No. 12 ranked DePauw (11-1) opened the second half on a 9-0 run and the Little Giants (5-5) never recovered.
“I don’t think our guys appreciated how well we did some things in the first half,” Wabash coach Kyle Brumett said. “We played from behind a bit and kept grinding and went to the half tied. You have to appreciate your defense, we went out and started the second half and were out of sorts, we sturggled offensively and were poor defensively. We dug ourselves a hole that we couldn’t dig out of.”
DePauw was 19-of-23 from the field in the second half, while Wabash was just 12-of-27. For the game the Tigers made 10 more field goals than the Little Giants and outscored them 30-18 from beyond the arc.
Nolan Ginther led DePauw with 25 points on 11-of-14 shooting.
Brumett felt like the Little Giants’ struggles defensively was a direct reflection of their poor shooting.
“I felt like more so tonight than some of our earlier games we let missing some shots or not playing as cleanly offensively, we let effect our defense and you can’t do that against teams as good as DePauw.”
Tyler Watson led Wabash with 27 points, while Kellen Schreiber added 21.
At 5-5 and with two games left on the abbreviated 2021 season, finding consistency is the key.
“It’s kind of week to week,” he said. “We’ve had a few games and that’s exactly how our record is, when you’re .500, you’re looking for consistency and when you’re playing the better teams you have to play with consistency.”
Wabash will travel to DePauw on Saturday at 3 p.m. for its third meeting with the once-beaten Tigers this season, before hosting Denison next Wednesday.
