Jan. 27, 2016

By Justin St. Peter

The Warhawks men’s basketball team was down by 10 to UW-Oshkosh at halftime on Jan. 20 on the road.

They had given up nine 3-pointers and head coach Pat Miller said the team wasn’t happy with the way it had played.

That was when the team slowly turned it around and were able to grit out a 66-60 road victory.

“We knew that if we dialed in defensively and could get some stops, we felt we could get back in that game,” Miller said. “It was just a matter of being patient and not trying to do it all at once. We responded well. Defensively, I thought it was our best half of the year, which we obviously needed with that deficit.”

After many timely baskets and defensive stops, the ’Hawks went on an 8-2 run in the final two minutes to pull out the victory.

“Through this recent string of games, we shot the ball very poorly from three and poorly in those situations,” Miller said. “During the Oshkosh game, we hit two down the stretch.”

Senior guard Trinson White had a team-leading 19 points and eight rebounds. Junior forward Cole Van Schyndel contributed 13 points and seven rebounds. Senior guard Haki Stampley chipped in 14 points.

The Warhawks then hosted UW-Eau Claire for Alumni Day on Jan. 23 and lost a close game 66-63. It was the ’Hawks first loss against the Blugolds since 2005.

The ’Hawks led 30-29 at the half, despite being outshot 50 percent to 41.7 percent.

The second half was a see-saw battle with neither team being able to pull away before the Blugolds stretched the lead out to 58-50 with two minutes left.

Sophomore guard Jerry Ngobi then tallied eight straight points to make it a two-point game at 62-60 with 16 seconds left. UW-Eau Claire made two free throws before White hit a 3-pointer, to make it a one point game.

After another pair of UW-Eau Claire made free throws, the ’Hawks had a chance to tie it up before a miscue led to a turnover and the Blugolds ran the rest of the clock out.

Miller said the team can learn from losses like UW-Eau Claire depending on how they approach it.

“They work hard,” Miller said. “They try to do what we ask them to do, but we just have a lot of inexperienced players. We don’t want to lose and can’t continue to lose if we want to stay in the conference race. Having said that, they are definitely trying to work themselves into a better basketball team.

The ’Hawks host UW-Platteville at 7 p.m. on Jan. 27 before traveling to current conference leader UW-River Falls at 5 p.m. on Jan. 30.

“The way the conference is shaping up, there is a lot of parity,” Miller said. “There is nothing on any given night that would surprise me. I think it’s going to be an interesting year this year, much more than previous years because the conference has been more top-heavy.”