The DePauw men’s basketball team lost to No. 20 ranked Washington University (Mo.) 84-77 on Saturday in a hard-fought battle.
Despite the loss, senior Luke Lattner scored his 1000th point in his career for the Tigers. Lattner finished with 22 points on 7-of-15 shooting, and also fouled out of the game with three minutes remaining. The Tigers dropped to 0-2 on the season while WashU improved to 2-0.
Junior Jack VandeMerkt also played well for the Tigers, scoring 16 points and grabbing nine rebounds. Freshman Ethan Jarrett came off the bench to score 12 points and added two assists.
Washington’s leading scorer in the game was Kevin Kucera, who had 27 points on 7-of-11 from the field and was 12-of-14 from the free throw line. Matt Highsmith also had 12 points and nine rebounds for the Bears.
The game was a back-and-forth affair, with neither team able to pull away. WashU’s largest lead of the game was only 10 points, which came with 2:38 to play, just seconds after Lattner had fouled out for the Tigers. The Tiger’s only took the lead once all game, occurring in the first quarter.
DePauw shot 47.5 percent from the field, compared to WashU’s 45.6 percent. The Tigers were able to connect from downtown throughout the game, making 10 three-pointers on 27 attempts. Even though DePauw made several more threes than the Bears, WashU played a disciplined game, committing only four turnovers and 14 personal fouls, compared to DePauw’s nine turnovers and 29 fouls. This success was evident in the free throw attempt discrepancy, as WashU shot 24 more free throws than the Tigers.
“We were successful in controlling the pace of the game and getting good looks on the offensive end,” said VandeMerkt. “However we made a few too many mistakes guarding them and allowed them to get to the free throw line too much.”
“I think we just made a couple of bad decisions late in the game,” said Lattner who earned a technical foul. “We let our emotions get the best of us because we thought the refs were making spotty calls, but we cannot control the calls so we have to learn to keep our composure and move on to the next play. We did play very hard against WashU and played with a lot of energy, which was nice, so we have to keep that up the rest of the year.”
Senior guard Nate Jahn was not flustered by the loss. “We fouled a little too much, but we rebounded the ball,” Jahn said. “I loved the way we competed and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.”
The Tigers will host Boyce College on Tuesday, November 22.