The UW Oshkosh men’s basketball team dropped its opening-round matchup of the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament last Thursday to UW-Stevens Point, 76-56.

UWSP never trailed in the game as they started out on a 14-2 run and never looked back. UWO struggled shooting the ball as they shot 11.5 percent from the 3-point line and 35.7 percent from the field.

Senior guard Ben Boots led the Titans with 19 points making all three of the team’s 3-point shots as everyone else on the team combined to go 0-16 from beyond-the-arc.
The loss comes after the Pointers bounced the Titans in last year’s WIAC tournament.

The only other Titan with a double-digit scoring night was sophomore forward Connor Duax with 13 points.
Senior forward Canon O’Heron led UWSP with 20 points on 8-14 shooting.

Oshkosh headed to halftime down by six and were unable to close the gap in the second half.

UWSP went on to play in the WIAC championship game where they lost to UW-Platteville, 70-57.

The Titans will be traveling to Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota on Friday to take on Lake Forest College (Ill.) in the opening round of the Division III NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Head coach Matt Lewis said Lake Forest’s offense will be tough to stop, but they have to limit the Foresters to taking contested shots.

“They can really score the basketball,” Lewis said. “We gotta get back and be really solid defensively. They shoot the basketball at a high rate; they’re 43 percent from three, so we’ve gotta take away rhythm shots.”
Senior guard Brett Wittchow said UWO will have to crash the boards to ensure that Lake Forest isn’t getting multiple possessions on the offensive end.

“They’re a fast-paced team,” Wittchow said. “They can shoot the ball. They can run in transition. We’ve gotta be at our best, but if we utilize our size and rebounding, we should come out ahead.”
The selection is the Titans’ fourth-straight trip to the tournament, and Boots said it’s special for the seniors and the program as a whole.

“It’s a really cool accomplishment for all of us, our senior class and our program as a whole,” Boots said. “It’s important to not get used to thinking that this is a casual thing.”
Boots said making it to the tournament was an expectation when the year started, but it’s not something they take for granted.

“It’s an expectation that we’re going to be here every year, but it’s still something that you have to cherish and embrace each day in practice and really treat it like an honor,” Boots said.
Senior guard Brett Wittchow said the team expected to make it to the tournament but making it four years in a row is pretty special.

“For me, I came into this year with the expectation of being there,” Wittchow said. “So it’s not quite as thrilling as the first couple of years where we were just sneaking in, but it still is a huge honor and not something we take for granted.”

This Friday’s winner will play the winner of the game featuring Saint John’s University and the University of Northwestern-St. Paul.

Lewis said his team knows the importance of the games from now until the end of its run but that won’t change the team’s identity.

“We gotta be good on Friday night or our season is over,” Lewis said. “That brings a heightened awareness to your practices and preparation. We don’t change who we are. We continue to prepare the same way we have. We know, come Friday, it’s going to be a big game.”