Senior Bob Dillon (left) trucks his way over a defender
as he drives his way to the basket in DePauw's double overtime victory
against Wittenberg. DePauw barely slid
past Wittenberg 79-75 in the first round of the NCAC tournament.
SAM CARAVANA/ THE DEPAUW
On paper, it looks like quite a bit separates Bill Fenlon from Billy Donovan, the head coach of the University of Florida Gators men’s basketball team.
Donovan is the head coach of a Division I powerhouse playing in one of the nation’s best conferences, he has two national championships and is preparing some of his players for a career in the NBA.
However, what matters most in college basketball, at any level, is wins, and in that, Donovan and Fenlon are equals. Both coaches are sitting on career win 499 with each teams’ seasons reaching their finales.
While Donovan has been stuck one win away from a coaching milestone since Feb. 18, Fenlon reached the mark in dramatic fashion on Tuesday night with a 79-75 double overtime win in the Tigers’ North Coast Athletic Conference quarterfinal matchup against Wittenberg University.
It was a win or go home game for both teams and they sure played like it.
The game featured 11 ties and 10 lead changes and neither team led by more than six points at any point in the game.
“It was just one of those games,” Fenlon said. “You had to fight for it and I thought we did fight for it.”
With 2:36 left to play in regulation, Wittenberg went on a 6-1 run that tied the game at 53 and kept their season alive for just a little.
The Tigers of Wittenberg led for much of the first overtime until sophomore Luke Lattner hit a three-pointer to give DePauw a 61-60 lead with just over 1:30 to play. Wittenberg responded, however, by drawing a foul and converting one of the two attempts to send the game to a second overtime period.
DePauw opened the second added session on a 12-5 run to put the game away. After narrowing the score to two, Wittenberg was forced to foul Lattner with seven second remaining. The sophomore converted both free throws to finish off Wittenberg.
“Although the game was back and forth, we all seemed confident,” junior Mark Johnson said. “With that said, I never doubted that we were going to pull out the victory.”
Lattner led all scorers with 26 points and senior Tommy Fernitz chipped in with a double double of 18 points and 12 rebounds.
“After losing on senior day, we really wanted to win our last game at Lilly so it felt great to come out with the victory especially against Wittenberg, a team that ended our season the last two years,” Fernitz said.
While he sits one win away now from a coaching milestone, Fenlon is more focused on the task at hand, mainly the Battling Bishops of Ohio Wesleyan University who are waiting for the Tigers in the semifinals of the NCAC tournament.
“You know what would really mean something to me? Getting to 501, that would mean something to me,” Fenlon said. “I’m shooting for 501, our team is shooting for two more. That’s where the focus is and that’s where it should be.”
That focus is placed squarely on the Battling Bishops, the number one seed in the conference and NCAC regular season champs.
In the two regular season meetings between the Battling Bishops and the Tigers, DePauw hasn’t fared very well. The Tigers dropped a 76-64 decision in Delaware in the middle of January and then fell to the Battling Bishops again 86-77 this past Saturday at Neal Fieldhouse.
While Ohio Wesleyan is the top seed and the favorite to win the conference tournament, they may be not be in the win or go home situation that the Tigers face. At 22-4 overall and 16-2 in NCAC play, the Battling Bishops stand a good chance of picking up an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament if they don’t take home the conference crown, something Fenlon hopes the Tigers can use to their advantage.
“So they can just relax and roll over for us, that would be fine,” Fenlon joked.
While the Bishops may not have as much to lose as the Tigers, their record at home is no joke. Ohio Wesleyan has won all 12 games they’ve played at home at Branch Rickey Arena. They’ll try and make it 13 on Friday night, with tipoff scheduled for 8:30 p.m.
“It’s going to be a fun atmosphere and a tough environment but nothing we aren’t prepared for,” Fernitz said. “[We] just have to play our game for 40 minutes.”