The Wabash College basketball team trimmed a 13-point first-half deficit to two points midway through the final period of Wednesday evening's North Coast Athletic Conference home matchup against Denison University. The Little Giants could not find the game-tying basket in an eventual 73-65 loss to the visiting Big Red.
 
Wabash (7-7, 3-2 NCAC) trailed 27-14 with 7:52 left to the play in the opening period after taking a 6-0 lead to start the game. The Little Giants faced a red-hot offensive unit from Denison (9-5, 5-0 NCAC) that shot 16 of 28 for 57 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes, including 8 of 15 from three-point range for 53.3 percent. The Big Red moved the ball well on offense against the Wabash defense, collecting 11 first-half assists on their 16 made baskets.
 
Wabash cut the Denison lead to six points at 31-25 with 4:52 remaining in the opening period. Avery Beaver scored two of his game-high 18 points on a pull-up jumper in transition to narrow the advantage. The Big Red responded with a basket by Ricky Radtke and a three from Dre Rodgers to push the lead back to double digits at 36-25. The two teams traded points over the next three minutes until Cameron Smith hit a jumper in the paint ahead of the first-half buzzer to send both squads to the locker room with Wabash trailing 42-29.
 
The Little Giants picked up the defense to open the second half, holding Denison scoreless over the first three minutes. Freshman Nate Matelic sparked the Wabash offense by scoring six straight points during that stretch to bring the Little Giants to within seven points at 42-35. Denison regained a double-digit lead at 48-38 with 14:07 left to play when the Little Giants mounted their biggest comeback effort.
 
Vinny Buccilla opened an 8-0 Wabash scoring run with a three-point basket to trim the advantage to seven points. Beaver followed with a driving layup for his 13th point of the game and added a free throw to make it a 48-44 contest. A missed shot in the lane for the Big Red led to another driving layup for Beaver to force Denison to call a timeout while clinging to a 48-46 lead.
 
The timeout seemed to settle Denison's offense as the Big Red went on a 9-0 run over the next two minutes to regain the double-digit lead at 57-46. Wabash got as close as six points one final time on a layup by Buccilla with 7:40 on the game clock, but the Big Red stretched the lead back to double digits once again and held that lead until a last-second layup from Champ McCorkle provided the 73-65 final.
 
Wabash made 26 of 57 shot attempts for 45.6 percent for the game after shooting just 37 percent (10 of 27) in the opening 20 minutes. The Little Giants struggled from long range, hitting only 4 of 23 three-point tries. Denison shot 49 percent from the field with a 27-of-55 effort. The Big Red hit 9 of 22 three-pointers for 41 percent shooting and held a 35-33 rebounding advantage. Ahmoni Jones grabbed a team-best eight rebounds for Wabash and moved into 11th place on the Little Giants' all-time rebounding list with 602 career boards. The senior became the 15th player in Wabash basketball history to score more than 1,300 career points, tallying seven points in the loss for a total of 1,305 points in 103 games.
 
Trevor Reed came off the bench to score 17 points to pace the Denison offense. Radtke added 14 points, and Scotty Dean finished with 11 points. Reed also grabbed a team-high seven boards for the Big Red, who now hold a one-and-a-half-game lead over Wittenberg in the NCAC standings. Wabash falls to third place overall with the loss.  
 
The Little Giants travel to Wooster, Ohio, on Saturday to face the College of Wooster Fighting Scots in a 2 p.m. contest.