By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Washburn University men's basketball moved into the NCAA national semifinals with a 90-78 win over Lenoir-Rhyne Tuesday night in Evansville, Ind., sending the Ichabods to the final four of the national tournament.
Washburn celebrates Tuesday's 90-78 national quarterfinal win over Lenoir-Rhyne. [Photo courtesy of Jeff Jacobsen/Action Images Photography, Inc.]
Now 30-3, the Ichabods advanced to an 8:30 p.m. semifinal on Thursday night against No. 1-ranked Nova Southeastern.
The Ichabods led from start to finish on Tuesday thanks to a hot start coming out of the gate in both halves, but WU had to fight through several Lenoir-Rhyne rallies to get the win.
"Every team here has a great team and no team here is going to quit and we saw that,'' Ichabod senior Jacob Hanna told KTPK Radio after the game. "We'd go up and they'd take it back down but I think we did a good job of continuing to fight.''
WU pulled in front of the Bears 13-4 after sophomore Brayden Shorter scored nine points in the early going.
Washburn pushed its lead to 13 after a traditional 3-point play from Hanna put the Ichabods up 27-14 with 11:48 remaining in the first half, but the Bears (29-6) chipped away, trimming their deficit to five less than 60 seconds later before a pair of Hanna free throws, a 3-pointer from Shorter and a Hanna bucket in the paint pushed the margin back to 10.
The WU lead stayed in double digits until the Bears used a 9-0 run to pull within three again at 40-37.
Back-to-back layups from freshman Dillon Claussen and senior Michael Keegan stretched the Washburn lead back to seven but LRU hit three free throws with 37 seconds left before sophomore Jack Bachelor's jumper sent the Ichabods to the locker room with a 46-40 lead.
In the second half the Ichabods went up by 20 with 14:42 to play and by as many as 21 before the Bears came back again.
"I think at the start of the second half we did a good job of coming out with a lot of fire, a lot of energy,'' Hanna said. "I think where it really started was in the locker room. I think coach challenged us and we responded to the challenge.''
The Bears eventually cut the lead to seven, but two jumpers in a row from Claussen put the margin at 11 and the Bears got no closer than nine the rest of the way.
"We did a really good job of finishing,'' WU coach Brett Ballard told KTPK Radio. "I thought the beginning of the halves was big. We started off the game on a great run and then the first five or six minutes of the second half were really good basketball.''
The Ichabods had six players in double figures, led by Shorter's 18 points.
Claussen came off the bench to tie a season high with 17 points on 7 of 7 shooting from the field.
Both Hanna and Bachelor both finished with 12 points while Bachelor also dished out nine assists and Hanna added six boards and five assists.
Bachelor overcame a slow start with 10 second-half points.
"I'm never worried about points,'' Bachelor told KTPK Radio. "I'm just trying to help the team in any way I can, if that's defense, if that's assists or whatever it is.
"I got off to a good start in the second half and was able to get going, but I'm just trying to do anything to help the team in any possible way.''
Junior Brady Christiansen finished with 12 points and four boards and senior Andrew Orr had 10 points and three boards. Keegan tallied four points, six rebounds, two assists and a steal.
Junior Hodnett led the Bears with 19 points.
Washburn finished at 53 percent from the field, going 31 of 58 and 10 of 21 from deep while also hitting 18 of 21 free throws.
The Bears shot 41 percent, connecting on 17 of 20 free throws and 9 of 24 shots from 3-point range.
Washburn held a 36-29 rebounding advantage and outscored the Bears 40-34 in the paint and 24-5 in fastbreak points.
The Ichabods became the second team in program history to reach the 30-win mark, joining the 1986-87 NAIA National Championship team who were 35-4, while Ballard won his 200th career game as a head coach against the Bears.
With his five 3-pointers, Shorter became the Ichabods' all-time single-season leader, passing Maurice Lamar, who hit 113 in the 1991-92 season.
