Saturday, March 8, 2003

Gustavus cuts UW-SP from NCAA field
By Jerry Rhoden - Central Wisconsin Sunday

STEVENS POINT - It was a tournament death by a thousand cuts.

The Gustavus Adolphus men slashed to the basket, crashed the boards and dashed the University of Wiscon-sin-Stevens Point's NCAA championship hopes with a 75-62 victory Saturday night at Quandt Fieldhouse.

Though the Pointers (24-4) took a size advantage into their third NCAA Division III Tournament appearance in six seasons, the size of the fight in the Gusties' dog proved formidable.

"I've been saying this all season," Pointers coach Jack Bennett said. "When the game gets very physical, we struggle."

Gustavus (23-6) outrebounded UW-SP 41-26, the Pointers' lowest total since a four-point loss to UW-Oshkosh on Jan. 22 and their most lopsided margin all season.

"They out-physicaled us," Bennett emphasized. "We would go up and tip (the ball) and get moved away, and they'd be there holding their ground."

Small forward Brett Boese was the Gusties' rock of stability all night, scoring 11 points but pulling down 13 rebounds.

"I thought (Boese) was the trump card for them," Bennett said. "His tremendous intensity turned the game around."

There were plenty of opportunities for rebounds on the offensive end for the Pointers, who went 22-of-57 from the floor and just 7-of-26 from the 3-point line.

But the Pointers made the most of their home-court advantage early on, turning an 8-2 lead into a 14-4 edge over the game's first 10 minutes.

"It's a pretty intimidating place to play," the Gusties' David Newell said of Quandt, which housed 2,052 on Saturday. "And they're a very good team. We were a little timid."

The Gusties settled into a rhythm of cuts toward and away from the basket, whittling away at the Pointers' early lead until Tim Brown hit back-to-back 3-pointers to give Gustavus the lead with four minutes to play in the first half.

"If you hit one shot like that, it can totally settle you down," said Brown, who went 3-of-4 from the arc.

"He's been hitting those kind of shots for us all year," said head coach Mark Hanson, whose Gusties faced UW-SP for the first time in the schools' history. "We've been a pretty good shooting team throughout the year. What was more surprising was that we did it against one of the better defensive teams in the country."

The Pointers had allowed opponents to hit just 37 percent of field-goal attempts this season, second-best in the nation among Division III teams. But Gustavus hit 56 percent from the floor Saturday.

Gustavus took a 29-26 lead into halftime and came out firing after the break. Nick Bennett drained three 3-pointers over the first seven minutes of the half to help Point build a 45-40 lead. Bennett hit 4-of-9 from the arc and finished with a team-high 18 points, the seventh time the sophomore has been the team's high scorer this season.

The game marked a career finale for senior Pointers center Josh Iserloth, who scored 15 points to become the school's fourth all-time scorer. A three-time all-Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference honoree, his 1,552 career points and trunkful of honors meant little to him in the game's residual moments.

"The only thing running through my head, is this is the last time I'm going to put this jersey on," he said. "And the last time I'm going to take it off."