Wabash welcomed Wittenberg to Chadwick Court on a cold and snowy Wednesday night. The hosts were hoping to get hot inside in the paint, but after a good first half the Little Giants cooled down in the second half, losing 73-58.
 
 
"They are better than the average team," coach Kyle Brumett said. "They are big and kind of what we were like a couple years ago. They have a lot of the same defensive principles that we do. They use their length and they are big inside and they want to make you score over them because they are bigger than the average D3 team."
 
Wabash shot the ball pretty well in the first half but very poorly in the second half leading to 19 second-half points. The Little Giants (10-12, 6-9 NCAC) finished the game 18-of-55 from the field and 10-of-24 from behind the arc, translating into just 8-of-31 from inside the arc for Wabash.
 
"Logan (White) and Harry (Hallstrom) missed some good shots," Brumett said. "They did a good job on their ball screen defense and once inside the arc Colten had a hard time. You have to give Wittenberg credit for that."
 
Wabash was outrebounded 37-31 but had nine offensive rebounds to Wittenberg's seven. Both teams only had two points off of those boards.
 
"We need to get better at finishing and putting the ball in the basket," Brumett said. "We competed better on the boards than the first game but I also feel like we were a lot better on the boards in the first half than we were in the second half."
 
Sophomore Ben Stachowski led the team with 16 points, all of which came in the first half. Freshman Colten Garland had 13 points and sophomores Duncan Roy and Logan White also added in 10 points.
 
Wabash took a seven-point lead in the first half but was unable to hold it in the second. Roy scored on a three-pointer with 5:09 left in the game to cut the Wittenberg lead to 58-56, but that proved to be the final field goal of the night for the Little Giants. Wittenberg (16-6, 10-5 NCAC) scored 15 points the rest of the way to stretch its lead and stave off any sort of comeback opportunity.
 
"We need to pick ourselves up off the mat and talk about the fact we competed and also talk about the fact that we missed shots we need to make," Brumett said. "We need to go out Saturday and finish better while still competing on the glass like we did for 30 minutes in this game."
 
Wabash will celebrate Senior Day this Saturday prior to the final home game of the 2016-17 season against Oberlin at Chadwick Court. Tipoff is at 3 p.m.