By Justin Woodard
Despite struggling early on and falling down by five at halftime, the UW-Whitewater men’s basketball team came storming back in the second half to defeat UW-Platteville 66-55 in the Kachel Gymnasium on Saturday night to claim the WIAC tournament title.
To start the game, head coach Pat Miller may have been having flashbacks to a time when his team was struggling to begin the regular season.
“I thought we were very inactive offensively and we settled for a lot of perimeter shots,” Miller said. “We tried to do too much dribble penetration from the top early on in possessions and it looked like the way we played in January.”
After the slow start to the first half, the Warhawks came out of the locker room with a lot more energy and took control in the second half. The Warhawks were down 26-21 after one half, but they outscored UW-Platteville 45-29 in the second half to seal up the victory.
Freshman Darnell Harris led the Warhawks in scoring and rebounding putting up 20 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. Junior Eric Bryson followed him up with 17 points while knocking down four of eight 3-point baskets.
“I have just been getting in the gym a whole lot more and putting up more shots after practice and it has been helping out a lot,” Bryson said.
The freshman Harris has big shoes to fill with the departure of Chris Davis from last year’s squad and he stepped up in the second half. After only scoring six points in the first half, Harris picked up the pace in the second half scoring 14 points while knocking down two 3-point baskets.
Coach Miller feels his team is doing two things in particular much better than they were doing to begin the season.
“We are getting better in two areas specifically, our guards are rebounding much better and that is helping our totals, and secondly, Darnell is doing a great job on the glass,” Miller said. “He wasn’t as active early in the season and he has gotten better at going to the offensive glass.”
The Warhawks will begin NCAA Tournament play Saturday, March 2. They will not know who they play until seeding is decided this Monday, Feb. 25.
