After trailing by as many as 20 points in their North Coast Athletic Conference opener against Denison University on Wednesday night, DePauw’s men’s basketball team’s comeback effort was not enough, as they fell 80-67.
“We wanted to start off with a win in conference but it's a long season and we've got to focus on the next one,” sophomore guard David Vogel said.
The loss continues DePauw’s difficult start to the year. The Tigers currently sit at 2-4, their worst start to a season since the1996-1997 season, when they started 0-5 and finished the year 12-13, missing out on the NCAA tournament.
If the Tigers are going to avoid a similar fate this year, they’ll have to do a better job keeping opponents from scoring.
“We need to rebound and play harder on the defensive end,” junior guard Luke Lattner said. “We do these two things we will be fine down the road, but we just have to focus more on those two aspects of the game because we are not very good at either right now.”
The Big Red went on a 12-2 run with just under 14 minutes remaining in the first half and managed to hold off DePauw’s pushes in the second half.
Denison was able to get to the rim, scoring the first six points of the run inside the paint, and then finished it off connecting on three straight-three pointers to push the score to 29-9 at the midway point of the first half.
DePauw used a run of its own to end the first 20 minutes to get back into the game, pulling the deficit down to 12 to end the first half.
Despite a much closer affair in the second half, the Big Red was able to pull away late thanks to three pointers on three consecutive possessions all courtesy of senior guard Darius White. DePauw closed the gap to nine points with just over two minutes to play, but the Tigers missed their last four shot attempts and fell 80-67.
Lattner led the way for the Tigers with 28 points while the other four DePauw starters struggled mightily, combining to score only 16 points.
“Some nights people are going to have off nights, some nights people are going to be on, that's how basketball works,” Lattner said. “But we are focused on staying the course, trusting what our coaches are telling us and things will slowly start to fit and we will be a way better team late in the year. It is a process.”
The two-point effort from Vogel marked the second straight game he made only one field goal. After scoring in double figures in each of the Tigers’ first four games, Vogel’s absence in the scorebook has made the task more difficult.
The Tigers will have a chance to turn things around with two more conference games before they get some time off for winter break.
Depauw will travel to The College of Wooster on Saturday and then hosts Oberlin College the following weekend before shutting things down until after Christmas.
Said Lattner: “We need to figure out some things on the defensive end as well as the offensive end, and we will, so I don't think we can judge our season up to this point because it is still early.”