Stone & Co. avenge NCAA tourney loss

Matt Weinstein
Bernell Dorrough

The members of the Washington University men’s basketball squad have worked themselves out of an early season slump by winning the Lopata Classic on their home court by defeating long-time rival Illinois Wesleyan 65-61.

After defeating Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Friday in the first round of the Classic, the Bears looked forward to avenging last year’s season-ending loss to Illinois Wesleyan.

In its first game, the team took on Claremont College. Claremont entered the game at en even record of 2-2 while the Bears got off to a 2-2 start in their first four games.

“This slow start can be partially attributed to the youth and inexperience of the Wash U squad,” says senior forward Ryan DeBoer. “We are a very young team after graduating so many seniors. The starters last year had two years of playing together before our first game, so they were able to jump right into it. This year every person on the team has a new role to get accustomed to, and it took us a couple games to get a good feel for ourselves as players and as a team. ”

The two teams played evenly in the first half, but the Bears jumped out on a 17-1 run to start the half and were able to put away the game, 76-59. Statistically, Wash U dominated Claremont. The Bears outshot Claremont 43 percent to 33 while crashing the boards and out-rebounding their opponent 49-37.

Senior guard Barry Bryant led the Bears with 15 points while Rob Keller and Scott Stone both scored in the double digits. Mike Grunst played tremendous defense for the University, contributing ten rebounds and six blocks.

Because of their ability to effectively control the boards, the Bears dominated the second chance points category 18 to 11, 14 of those points coming in the explosive second half.

In the other game played on Saturday, Illinois Wesleyan defeated the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays 77-64. Led by Adam Dauksas and Keelan Amelianovich (each with 21 points), Illinois Wesleyan overpowered Johns Hopkins and advanced to play the Bears in the championship on Sunday.

The final proved to be a closely contested battle, as the two teams fought to the very end, with Wash U pulling out the victory 65-61. The first half ended with the score tied 30-30, but behind a series of three pointers the Bears finally pulled away at the end.

Three Bears ended the game with ten or more points, while DeBoer led the way with a double-double. Bryant also contributed 10 points and a career high 11 assists. And once again Grunst played an impressive physical game by grabbing ten boards and blocking four shots.

The Bears’ aggressive defense forced Illinois to turn the ball over 16 times, with the Bears capitalizing in the form of 20 points off turnovers.

The success of this weekend’s play at the Lopata Classic is a sign that the young squad is well on its way to gelling and forming another solid team.

“We made a lot of progress as a team this weekend, and we are really starting to flow,” said DeBoer. “We are going to take everything we learned this weekend and continue to progress as a team. As our conference play begins, we want to be at the top of our game.”

Conference play is quickly approaching as the team plays only four more non-conference games before attempting to defend their UAA title. There are some very tough opponents in the UAA this year that will attempt to dethrone the Bears.

“Chicago is always going to be a big rival because of our history together,” added DeBoer. Every time we play them it’s a battle. Rochester has a very good team again this year, once again ranked in the top ten. No matter who we play during conference, the team is going to be tough. After winning the UAA two years in a row, every other team is out to beat us. We need to prove that we are still the dominant team in the UAA.”

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