Pointers’ season ends with loss in WIAC Championship Game
Portage County Gazette
By John Kemmeter
Coming off a 20-point win on the road over one of the top teams in the nation, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) men’s basketball team had its season come to an end with a loss to UW-Platteville in the WIAC Tournament Championship Game Saturday, Feb. 23.
The Pointers (18-9, 8-6) won 76-56 at fourth-ranked UW-Oshkosh (23-3, 13-1) in the WIAC Tournament Semifinals Thursday, Feb. 21, and then led 55-54 at Platteville (18-10, 8-6) with 4:25 left in the WIAC Championship Game, when Platteville closed the game on a 15-2 run to win 70-57 and secure the automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament.
After bringing back four starters from last year’s Sweet 16 team and returning junior guard Ethan Bublitz from a season-ending injury a year ago, UWSP entered this season with National Title aspirations and remained in the mix for one of 20 Pool C (at-large bids) to the NCAA Tournament, but ultimately didn’t get one when the brackets were unveiled Monday, Feb. 25, as Oshkosh and UW-La Crosse (17-9, 10-4) both received at-large berths to give the WIAC three teams in the tournament.
“We know each year you have to earn it, and there certainly is a lot of anticipation and excitement when you have a veteran group returning and you’ve had a good year in the previous year,” said UWSP men’s basketball head coach Bob Semling. “Our guys heard us talk many times about, ‘every year is different and you have to prove yourself all over again.’
“We knew that we could not be complacent, that we had to be very good in the off-season, we had to come back better, and that we would have to prove it and earn it again on the court,” he said. “And we were just simply not able to do enough this year to take it out of the hands of the committee.”
Following an 89-61 win over fifth-seeded UW-Eau Claire (14-12, 7-7) in the WIAC Tournament Quarterfinals Tuesday, Feb. 19, the fourth-seeded Pointers traveled to top-seeded Oshkosh Thursday night, where UWSP got out to a 10-0 lead 4:10 into the game and carried a 28-22 lead into halftime.
The Pointers held a 35-27 lead with 16:44 to go, when junior forward Blake Ehrke scored the final six points in a 12-4 run that gave UWSP a 47-31 lead with 11:58 remaining, and the Pointers went on to close out a 76-56 victory.
Senior forward Canon O’Heron finished with 20 points and four rebounds, Bublitz had 14 points and six rebounds, junior forward Brandon Spray totaled 13 points and seven rebounds off the bench, and Ehrke added 11 points and 10 rebounds off the bench.
“I was really pleased that our guys found that level we have been seeking, and for 40 minutes our fans saw us overachieve and play at the level that they expect us to play at,” said Semling. “It was on both ends of the floor, we played outstanding defense for the second game in a row, and we played aggressively and moved very hard within our motion offense and were very unselfish, and that led to a lot of high-percentage shots.
“We fully expected that to carry over down at Platteville,” he said. “But unfortunately, it didn’t.”
The Pointers looked to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament in the WIAC Championship Game Saturday night at third-seeded Platteville, which advanced with a 61-51 win at second-seeded La Crosse in the other WIAC Semifinal Thursday.
Platteville built its biggest lead of the first half at 23-18 with 9:44 left, before Ehrke hit a three-pointer to cap a 6-0 run that gave the Pointers a 24-23 lead with 7:21 to go, while Platteville went into halftime with a 35-32 advantage.
Platteville extended its lead to 42-34 with 18:46 remaining in the second half and never trailed as it built a 54-45 lead with 8:34 to play, when senior guards Nate Dodge and Drew Fredrickson hit back-to-back three-pointers to cap a 10-0 run that gave UWSP a 55-54 lead with 4:25 left.
However, Platteville senior forward and Reigning WIAC Player of the Year Robert Duax scored the next nine points in the game, as he hit a three-pointer with 1:31 to go to give Platteville a 63-55 lead, and Platteville went on to close out a 70-57 win and advance to the NCAA Tournament.
UWSP shot 1-for-8 from the field in the final four minutes, while Bublitz finished with 15 points and five rebounds, and Fredrickson had 14 points and five rebounds.
“I never felt like we got into a good place in that game, where we could count on something,” said Semling. “We were struggling on the offensive end, they were defending well and that put pressure on us, and instead of working harder together, I thought we tried to do it on our own.
“And that sometimes happens, where guys want to make plays, they want to win, but instead of trusting and leaning on each other, they try to do it on their own, and that just seemed to repeat itself,” he said. “And then defensively, we had some good stretches, but it was very inconsistent, and at the end of the day, they beat us.”
UWSP looked to have a shot an at-large bid to the 64-team NCAA Tournament if it was placed ahead of La Crosse and Wheaton (Ill.) (19-8) in the Central Region Rankings after both lost in their conference tournament semifinals last week, as the Pointers had a higher Strength of Schedule and RPI than both, but UWSP was 2-6 against Regionally Ranked Opponents in the Feb. 20 Regional Rankings, with Wheaton 4-5 and La Crosse 4-2.
When the selections were announced Monday, Feb. 25, both La Crosse and Wheaton received at-large bids, and UWSP was left out of the tournament, after all nine of its losses were to NCAA Tournament teams, including going 0-3 against Platteville and 0-2 against La Crosse.
“We had one of the best strength of schedules again in the entire country, but our winning percentage was just not good enough,” said Semling. “We never anticipated going 8-6 in the WIAC and we didn’t think we would start 1-4 at home in the WIAC, and we lost three games in a row at home, and that probably sealed our fate.
“There’s a lot of other factors too, but you can look back at that stretch right there (in January), losing to Oshkosh at home, and losing to La Crosse and Platteville at home, if you win one of those three, you’re probably in the tournament,” he said. “I shared with a couple of our guys as I’ve met with them individually, La Crosse and Platteville kept us out of the tournament, that’s the bottom line. We went 0-2 against La Crosse and 0-3 against Platteville, and they’re both in the tournament and we’re not.”