"We executed our game plan for 30 minutes," said coach Mac Petty. " Then we got fatigued and didn’t execute after that. That was the difference in the game."
Wabash survived three early runs by the Tigers in the first half. DePauw went on a 10-1 run five minutes into the game to take a 15-8 lead. The Little Giants had taken a 7-4 lead on a Matt Storm (Anderson, IN/Lapel) three-pointer before the DePauw run, and ended the streak with another basket by the freshman to cut the lead to five. The Tigers pushed the lead to eight points twice in the first half before Wabash went on a 7-1 run of its own with five points from Pleas Ferguson (Indianapolis, IN/Arsenal Tech)and two free throws by Storm to tie the score at 34-34 at halftime.
While Storm and Ferguson kept Wabash alive in the first half, sophomore Joe DesJean (Indianapolis, IN/Perry Meridian) took over in the second half.
Storm had13 points at the half to lead the Little Giants, while Ferguson had tossed in 12. The DePauw defense had held DesJean to only four points in the first half, but the sophomore scored six of the first 12 points of the second half to give the Little Giants a one point lead.
But three-pointers and offensive rebounds by DePauw took the Little Giants out of the game. DePauw finished with 17 offensive rebounds for 14 second chance points, and hit nine three-pointers in the second half. Five of those threes came after Wabash had taken the one point lead to push the Tigers in front 59-52 with five minutes remaining in the game. The Wabash defense ran out of gas as DePauw outscored the Little Giants 19-11 down the stretch for the win.
"We worked on keeping DePauw off of the offensive boards in practice," said Petty. "We knew they were a good rebounding team. We have to work harder and we have to get better production from our bench. Our bench has to step up and give us some good minutes on the floor. We’ve just got to stay with it and keep working hard in practice and get better. We had a good game plan, that was obvious for 30 minutes. We have to execute for the entire game."
DesJean finished with 21 points to lead the Little Giants in scoring. Ferguson finished with 16 and Storm had 13 points in 37 minutes of play.
Wabash falls to 0-4 with the loss. The Little Giants will travel to Chicago to play North Park on Saturday evening.