Scots Denied by DePauw in NCAC Tournament Finals

DELAWARE, Ohio – Fourth-seeded DePauw University continued its impressive march through the 2015 North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament, using an 11-2 run midway through the second half to upend No. 2 seed College of Wooster 69-56 Saturday night inside Branch Rickey Arena on the campus of Ohio Wesleyan University.

Wooster will now have to wait and see if its 22-6 record is good enough to warrant an at-large berth into the NCAA Div. III Championship field.

DePauw (19-9) retook the lead during the opening moments of the second, then it was a one- or two-possession game until the midway point of the half. That's when the Tigers turned a 36-35 margin into a 47-37 cushion as Connor Rich accounted for the first five points of the 11-2 run and Luke Lattner four.

After DePauw stretched its lead a little more to 52-39, Xavier Brown gave the Fighting Scots life with a personal 6-0 run to make it a seven-point deficit at the 4:22 mark.

Then, Rich made jumpers on back-to-back possessions to put the lead back into double-digits, and the Tigers added to it with effective free throw shooting down the stretch (13-for-17).

Wooster fell into an early 13-4 hole less than five minutes in. Its defense brought it back into the game, limiting DePauw to two points over the next 12 minutes. Near the end of that stretch, Brown fed Josh Kipfer for a lay-up for the Scots' first lead of the game, 16-15 with 3:13 before halftime.

Lattner netted a pair of free throws at the 2:52 mark to snap the Tigers' drought, and the two teams exchanged leads, with DePauw taking a slight 23-22 edge into the break.

Wooster was ice cold shooting the ball outside, as it was 0-for-8 from 3-point range – the first time the Scots haven't made a 3-pointer in a game during the 2000s. They were 14-for-21 on free throws (.667), however, they missed the front end of one-and-one opportunities three times in the second half.

Brown and fellow senior Evan Pannell led Wooster with 13 and 12 points, respectively, while Kipfer contributed 11 points and a team-best nine rebounds off of the bench.

Tournament MVP Frank Patton III piled up 15 of his game-high 20 points at the foul line (15-for-16), Rich scored 12 points in the second half and 15 overall, as did Lattner for the Tigers.

The Scots' representatives on the all-tourney team were Dan Fanelly and Pannell.

The NCAA Div. III Championship field will be announced on Monday at 12:30 p.m., at ncaa.com.