The Wayne State College men’s basketball team earned the No. 10 seed in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference tournament and will commence First Round action against the No. 7 seed Winona State Warriors in Winona, Minnesota on Wednesday, February 26.
The Wildcats and Warriors have matched up once this year already. Back on December 7th in Rice Auditorium, the Wildcats took home a hard fought 68-63 win. In that contest, the Wildcats trailed for most of the first half before taking an eight-point lead at the half. They then led by as many as 12 before the Warriors rallied to make it close, but WSC was able to close it out.
The Wildcats shot 49% from the floor and 38.5% from three-point range the last time out against WSU. Sixth-man Kai Smith led the way shooting a perfect 6-6 and leading the scoring with 17. Cody McCullough had 14 and JJ Ferrin finished with 11.
Senior point guard Jay Saunders and freshman forward Matt Noll each had lackluster days in the previous matchup against the Warriors. However, both players are coming off career-high scoring performances in the regular season finale against Minot State. Noll had 32 and Saunders contributed 25.
Winona State poses a lot of threats that the Wildcats must account for. The Warriors are led by two of the ten leading scorers in the conference. Sophomore guard Luke Haertle averages 17.4 points per game and the Warrior big man Connor Drew pours in 14.8 per contest. Isaiah Thompson is another key role player who is top 20 in the conference in scoring with 13.5 points per game and is the conference’s fourth leading rebounder at 8.9 boards per game.
Men’s basketball head coach Jeff Kaminsky feels confident in his team’s ability to match up with everything Winona State is set to throw at them.
“It’s a team I feel like we match up well with,” Kaminsky said. “It sets up well for us in terms on individual matchups. They are a very mobile team. They execute really well offensively and of you can’t disrupt that, they can be really problematic. I think us beating them earlier in the year is going to give our guys confidence that we match up well. We just have to play well.”
The Wildcats and Warriors are set to do battle from McCown Gymnasium in Winona at 6 p.m. on Wednesday. A win advances either side to the NSIC quarterfinals in the Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to play the No. 2 seed Southwest Minnesota State Mustangs on Saturday, March 1.
