GRANVILLE, Ohio – It was not the way The College of Wooster men's basketball team wanted to clinch its North Coast Athletic Conference-leading 19th championship, but the Fighting Scots are champions again despite Wednesday's 78-70 setback to Denison University at Livingston Gymnasium.
Wittenberg University's (12-11, 8-7 NCAC) 58-56 overtime win over Wabash College (18-6, 11-4 NCAC) kept the Scots a game ahead of the Little Giants, thus giving Wooster (18-5, 12-3 NCAC) at least a share of this year's conference championship. Wednesday's results set the stage for Saturday's Wooster-Wabash winner clinching the one seed for next week's NCAC Tournament. Tipoff for Saturday's game at Timken Gymnasium is at 3:15 p.m.
Naturally, Denison (13-10, 9-6 NCAC) pulled away from Wooster right after the Wittenberg-Wabash game went final. Darren Rubin was the catalyst during the decisive stretch, scoring eight of Denison's points during a 12-0 run. Rubin hit two triples before Ricky Radtke's bucket made it a 63-53 game with 4:20 remaining. Wooster had just taken its final lead of the night before the run when sophomore Jamir Billings stole the ball from Cameron Smith and worked it to junior Carter Warstler, who got both Big Red in the vicinity to bite on the shot fake before easily laying in a two-pointer.
Wooster was within eight at four points down the stretch, with the first coming when senior Najee Hardaway found junior Nick Everett down low for a layup. Next, Wooster's press gave Denison trouble on a couple of possessions, leading to a Hardaway steal that was quickly cashed into three points on a pull-up three-pointer by junior Elijah Meredith. Meredith's bucket had Wooster within 68-60 with 1:51 remaining. Later, Everett cleaned up a series of desperation quick-trigger misses with a stick-back that had the score at 70-62 with 1:33 on the clock, and Meredith's three-ball in the closing seconds trimmed the deficit back to eight.
The teams exchanged the lead 14 times, with nine of those coming in the first half. The score was tied 12 times on the night, including 33-33 at halftime. Wooster's biggest lead was at 20-12. Meredith was responsible for that bucket, hitting a three-pointer following a pass from first-year Isaac Roeder with 9:37 on the clock. Leading up to the triple, Everett had the soft touch with a high bank shot following a Meredith feed, Warstler made a layup, and Billings had his first steal of the night.
Denison kept mixing things up defensively, switching between man-to-man and a 1-3-1 zone. Wooster had success against the zone down low, with several instances of finding the open Scot on the backside. That led to an Everett dunk in the first half when the junior found the soft spot once the defense collapsed around senior Turner Kurt, and the teammates reversed the assist-to-basket sequence on the following possession.
Everett's career-high climbed to 22 points on 10-of-13 shooting, and the junior upped his average to 20 points over the Scots' last four games. Meredith followed with 19 points, while Kurt's 10 rebounds led all players. Billings and Hardaway passed out seven assists apiece and combined for five steals.
Wooster shot 45.5 percent (30-of-66), was just 8-of-31 (25.8 percent) on three-pointers, and got to the line just once, making both attempts. Wooster did have a 39-28 rebounding advantage, but had four more turnovers than Denison.
Rubin and Nick Heath scored 19 points apiece for Denison, which was nearly-automatic at the charity stripe at 15-of-16. Overall, Denison shot 47.4 percent (27-of-57) from the floor and was 9-of-24 on three-pointers.
The NCAC title is Wooster's first since the 2018-19 season.