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Tigers suffer frustrating loss to No. 22 Ohio Wesleyan
A near-perfect start for the DePauw men's basketball team was derailed by the persistent play of visiting Ohio Wesleyan on Saturday in a ** loss.
The Tigers led 15-3 five minutes into the game but the No. 22-ranked Bishops shot to the lead with a 16-3 run of their own and made more plays down the stretch to hand DPU (11-4, 6-2) its first home conference loss.
"I guess what we thought was we were just going to beat them 100 to like 8," DePauw head coach Bill Fenlon said, "and when it became apparent that that wasn't going to happen I feel like we didn't handle that very well."
The Tigers entered the game as winners of six straight games but struggled to solve the Bishops offense, coming late on rotations and surrendering position in the low post.
Junior Tommy Fernitz continued a magnificent stretch of play, leading DPU with with 16 points and 18 rebounds, but his defensive ability was reduced because OWU posted up its guards and drew Fernitz away from the basket.
The two teams both had 28 points in the paint, but a large chunk for the Bishops came from freshman guard Seth Clark and junior wing player Nick Felhaber.
"We did a terrible job of supporting each other defensively," Fenlon said. "Which was the opposite of why we were so good on Wednesday. Our awareness level of what the heck was going on was so much different Wednesday than it was today it was like night and day."
The blowout win Wednesday against No. 9 Wittenberg may have given the Tigers false confidence, Fenlon said, that was extended further after the team's fast start on Saturday.
They got ahead and played like the game was already over.
"We had some pretty good defensive energy to start the game," Fenlon said. "When we got up, I thought our spacing went to hell. Offensively we had a hard time scoring, and I thought that affected us a little bit defensively."
The Bishops led by as many as eight in the first but the Tigers responded and took a 39-36 lead into halftime.
The response didn't last. DPU shot just 33 percent in the second half and nearly doubled its turnovers from five in the first to nine in the second.
The game was still close going into the final few minutes but DePauw failed to make plays and appeared defeated and lost mentally.
Down 63-61 after senior Pat Haggin hit a jumper with 3:38 left, DPU made just one more basket in the game, a 3-pointer from sophomore Adam Botts with 23 seconds remaining.
The Tigers knew a home loss was inevitable, Fenlon said, and coming midway through the conference season to a ranked team is not back-breaking.
"Were we awful today? I didn't think we were awful, but they're a top-20 team," he said. "You can't play like that against a team like that."
Botts finished with 16 points and senior Michael Wilkison had 14.
Clark led Ohio Wesleyan with 18 points and six rebounds.
DPU's next game is Wednesday at rival Wabash at 7:30 p.m.