It was a goal for the men’s basketball team to host its first round North Coast Athletic Conference tournament game.
That’s still a possibility, but one that was made more difficult since Saturday afternoon.
After falling behind 12-0 to open the game against Oberlin College (6-17, 4-10), the Tigers led just once during the game, and fell to the Yeomen on a final second shot, 51-49. DePauw (14-9, 7-7) was outrebounded 34-22 and shot just 37.5 percent from the field.
The loss was DePauw’s seventh by less than four points.
A win against Oberlin would have moved the Tigers in sole possession of fourth place in the NCAC conference standings. The defeat instead places DePauw in a three-way tie for fourth – the final spot in terms of hosting a first round NCAC tournament game. The final two games for the Tigers are against Wittenberg University on the road Wednesday and the College of Wooster at home Saturday.
Wittenberg (15-8, 8-6 NCAC) holds the No. 3 spot in the NCAC, and Wooster (20-3, 13-1 NCAC) is on top and ranked No. 14 in the country by D3Hoops.com.
“It’s as bad as it can be,” Fenlon said of Saturday’s loss to Oberlin. “This was a game that to realistically have a shot at one of those (home) spots, we needed to have this game.”
From the outset, Fenlon said his team struggled to adjust to a mix of a Yeomen zone and man defenses. DePauw missed its first six shots until Kevin Sullivan put the first points on the board after more than seven minutes of play.
Despite the deficit, the Tigers rallied with eight points by Michael Wilkison and six from Tommy Fernitz. At half, DePauw trailed by just one point.
“It was a goal to take away (DePauw’s) continuity,” Oberlin head coach Isaiah Cavaco said. “If they get into a rhythm they can put up a lot of points.”
 Neither team, however, had much going offensively as both shot below 35 percent in the first half.
In the second, the Tigers took the lead with a layup by Connor Rich in the opening minute, but the Yeomen responded with an 11-2 run that pushed their lead back to eight.
“We just weren’t making good adjustments as a team,” Fenlon said. “They were switching everything and we weren’t really going to the soft spots in the defense, and not finding each other.”
The game came down to the final minutes as DePauw’s leading points scorer, Barry Flynn, posted his first points of the contest with two minutes remaining. The senior’s layup brought the Tigers back within two, and with 18 seconds left, he found the net again to tie it.
After two timeouts, Oberlin inbounded the ball to the low post after their prime offensive threat, senior Andrew Fox, was covered at the top of the 3 point line. Instead, the ball went to freshman Randy Ollie in the low post, and after three consecutive pump fakes, he lifted a high shot off the glass that fell in with one second left on the game clock.
A final shot from the Tigers was no good.
“(Ollie) made a tough move as a freshman, so I’m pretty proud of him,” Cavaco said.
Flynn, who entering the Saturday’s game led DePauw with 15.3 points per game, was held to just four. No Tigers player scored in double figures while Sullivan and junior Pat Haggin paced the offence with nine apiece.
After the game, Fenlon bemoaned his team’s struggle with making in-game adjustments.
“When you hold them to 51 points you have to feel like that it’s an OK defensive effort,” he said. “We were not sure where the shots were going to come from. We haven’t really seen that brand of thing (Oberlin was) doing to us defensively, and we just really struggle when we see anything new making in-game adjustments.
“Oberlin really exposed us in a lot of different ways and I think we got outplayed and outcoached today. It happens and I’m not happy about it. I’m going to try and do a better job for our guys and I’m going to ask them to do a better job for these last couple of weeks.”