Index of Sports Press Releases

Feb. 24, 2010

Top-seeded Tigers host Doane in GPAC Quarterfinals

Brady Wiebe (32) and the DWU men’s basketball team open GPAC Tournament play Thursday against Doane College. (Photo by Laura Wehde)

MITCHELL, S.D. – The seventh-ranked Dakota Wesleyan University men’s basketball team already has one Great Plains Athletic Conference Championship in the books this season, and its quest to add another begins Thursday when the Tigers host Doane College at the Corn Palace for a 2010 GPAC Men’s Basketball Postseason Tournament Quarterfinal game.

By virtue of its regular-season conference title, the road to the tournament title also runs through Dakota Wesleyan and Mitchell. The Tigers are the tournament’s No. 1 seed with home court advantage throughout the playoffs. DWU enters postseason play with a 24-5 overall record, a 16-2 conference mark, a 12-1 home record and a 13-game winning streak.

Dakota Wesleyan has won 13-straight games against GPAC opponents since opening the season 3-2, and the Tigers finished the regular season with a perfect 8-0 record at home in the conference. Over the past three seasons, DWU is 26-2 at home against conference opponents, so the home court advantage is a great luxury for the Tigers in this tournament.

Doane (7-20), seeded ninth, advanced to Thursday’s semifinal with an impressive 63-62 upset at eighth-seeded Morningside College Tuesday night. The Tigers from Doane ended the game on a 12-2 run, and capped the stunning comeback with two free throws with 10 seconds left that ultimately gave them the win.

Though Doane has struggled this season, it played Dakota Wesleyan tough in the teams’ only head-to-head meeting Jan. 10 at the Corn Palace. The home team pulled out a 77-65 win, but it had to work for it. DWU jumped out to an early lead, but Doane never let the Tigers pull away.

The visiting Tigers don’t have a player who averages double-digit points, but it has six players who average at least 6.4 points per game. Doane is led by forward Jens Scholl and his 9.7 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. Veteran guard Tyler Cyboron leads the backcourt with 8.7 points per game with forward Zach Moult and guards Jake Johnson and Trent Schlautman.

The numbers in DWU’s starting lineup are a little different. Dakota Wesleyan boasts three players averaging more than 15 points per game and four in double figures, led by GPAC Player-of-the-Week Darrin Dorsey. The junior guard comes in with 18.6 points, 5.8 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 2.9 steals per game. Brady Wiebe adds 18.1 points and 9.7 rebounds per game. Preston Broughton averages 15.3 points and 8.8 rebounds per game and Mitch Bain adds 10.4 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game.

Dorsey leads the GPAC in steals, is second in assists and third in scoring. Wiebe is first in rebounding and fifth in scoring and Broughton is second in rebounding and also in the top 10 in scoring.

In other quarterfinal games, second-seeded Sioux Falls hosts No. 7 Northwestern, No. 3 Hastings hosts No. 6 Dordt and fourth-seeded Concordia hosts fifth-seeded Briar Cliff. Doane’s upset was the only one of the first round.

Thursday’s winners will advance to the semifinals, which will be held on Saturday. The GPAC Postseason Tournament Championship game will be held on Tuesday, with the winner receiving an automatic bid to the NAIA Division II Men’s Basketball National Tournament. DWU already received an auto bid with its regular season title, so if the Tigers win the tournament, the runner-up will get the bid.

Thursday’s game at the Corn Palace begins at 8 p.m., following the Hanson/Kimball girls’ basketball district playoff game. The game will be broadcast live by 105.9 FM KMIT or on the station’s Web site, www.kmit.com. The game will also be Web cast by the Mitchell Daily Republic. The live video feed and the tournament bracket can be found here: www.drsrc.com/drtv/.