Roundup: Tigers No. 1 Following Nine-Game Win Streak

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Billy Bowen

The Wittenberg men's basketball team is rolling along with a nine-game win streak, a run that has pushed the Tigers to the No. 1 ranking in the last two d3hoops.com national weekly polls. At 15-1 overall and 6-1 in the North Coast Athletic Conference, the Tigers are firmly established as a contender on a national scale in 2006.

Wittenberg has been in this position numerous times in recent years, yet the Tigers haven't reached the NCAA Division III semifinals in more than a decade. So Head Coach Bill Brown, who now has 290 wins in his Wittenberg career, knows that his team has merely put itself in position to this point. All of the team's goals are still waiting to be fully achieved.

In the last week, the Tigers completed a three-game homestand with three convincing victories over NCAC rivals Earlham, Hiram and Ohio Wesleyan. Wittenberg defeated the Quakers and Bishops (both of whom were tied with Wittenberg in the conference standings coming into the match-up) by 17 points apiece and also battered the Terriers by 42 points.

Sometimes statistics lie, and sometimes they help to tell a story. In this case, it's the latter.

Against Earlham, the Tigers shot 57 percent from the field, compared to just 32 percent for the Quakers, and the rebounding margin was just as stark, a 40-28 advantage for Wittenberg. The win over Hiram was never in doubt, in part thanks to a stunning 62-22 rebounding advantage for the home team. And against Ohio Wesleyan, the Tigers shot 75 percent from the field in the first half and 66 percent for the game. That included a blistering 9-of-13 from three-point range.

Game after game, the senior frontcourt trio of posts Daniel Russ (Louisville, Ky./Trinity) and Dane Borchers (Russia, Ohio/Russia) and wing Kenny Brady (Reading, Ohio/Reading) has led the way in scoring and rebounding, but the Tigers continue to make strides as a team because of the improved play of its supporting cast. Russ, Borchers and Brady are averaging double figures in scoring and are the team's top three rebounders.

Each game seems to produce a different key additional contributor, with junior wing Billy Bowen (Arcadia, Ind./Hamilton Heights) the latest hero after he drilled three consecutive treys in the first half of the win over Ohio Wesleyan. Bowen is shooting a phenomenal 55 percent from three-point range on the season (22-of-40), and for the third straight season has taken more three-point shots than two-pointers (40 treys and 14 from two-point range).

In that same game, junior guard Pat Denbow (Louisville, Ky./St. Xavier) had a career-high 11 points in large part thanks to a 3-of-4 shooting performance from beyond the arc. In his first year as a starter, Denbow has been steady at the point with 40 assists against 30 turnovers and a solid 45 percent shooting performance from the field on the season.

Next up for the Tigers, the top-ranked defensive team in all of NCAA Division III with just over 53 points allowed per game, is a key stretch of the season, beginning with Saturday's road trip to Allegheny. Wittenberg returns home for a game against a scrappy Wabash team on Jan. 25 before the Tigers hit the road again to take on a suddenly hot Denison squad on Jan. 28. Last year, the Big Red defeated Wittenberg in double overtime on their home court.

Then comes a road game on Feb. 1 against third-place Earlham, which took league-leader Wooster to overtime early this year, followed by the game of the year on Feb. 4 against the Tigers' arch-rival, the Wooster Fighting Scots. Wooster, ranked second in the nation currently, defeated Wittenberg on a last second shot on Dec. 10.