GRANVILLE, Ohio (February 8, 2023) – The Denison University men's basketball team earned a hard-fought 68-61 win over Wabash College during Senior Day on Wednesday evening inside Livingston Gymnasium.  The difference in the game was a 9-2 Big Red run to put Denison up by a score of 61-54 in the final three minutes.

The lone senior for the Big Red this season was guard Will Hunter, who scored on a second-chance layup on the opening possession of the game and finished with seven points and seven rebounds.

Denison was led by Darren Rubin with 18 points and four assists while Tyler Miller finished with 13 points, eight rebounds and four blocks.

Scotty Dean chipped in with 12 points while Emmett Burnside finished with nine points and six rebounds.

Denison took an early 11-point lead (18-7) on a four-point play by Rubin nine minutes in before leading it 37-30 at the half after a layup seconds before the break by the Little Giants.

Wabash then went on a 9-0 run to take a two-point lead (45-43) seven minutes into the second half, giving the Little Giants their first lead since the score was 3-2.

Miller finally stopped the Wabash run with a layup to tie it at 45-45 with 12 minutes remaining, and then after the Big Red missed each of their first nine 3-point shots of the second half, Miller connected from long range to give Denison a 49-47 advantage with 8:20 left to play.

With the score tied at 52-52 with just over five and a half minutes to go, Burnside made a great move to the basket on a fake handoff and scored the go-ahead layup, and then on the next Wabash possession, the steal and ensuing layup by Dean made it 56-52 Big Red with 5:15 remaining to bring the crowd inside Livingston Gymnasium to life.

After a tough layup in traffic by Wabash made it a one-score game (56-54) with four a half minutes still on the clock, Rubin drove into the paint and found Dean on the opposite wing for a 3-pointer to make it 59-54 with four minutes left.

In the final three minutes, Miller scored again with a contested layup that just rolled in to make it a 61-54 Big Red lead, and then after an old-fashioned three-point play by Wabash to make it a four-point game (61-57), Miller came up with a tip-in to make it 63-57 with a minute and a half to go.

From there, Wabash missed back-to-back 3-pointers as the clock ticked down to under one minute, and Denison finished off the game going 5-for-6 from the free throw line in the final 30 seconds to close it out.

With the win, Denison (12-9 overall, 8-5 North Coast Athletic Conference) not only earned its third win in a row, but snapped a five-game losing skid against Wabash (17-5, 10-3), which is receiving votes in the latest D3hoops.com men's Top 25 poll and had won five games in a row, all by 10 points or less.

Denison will wrap up the week with its second-straight game against a team in the top-three of the NCAC men's basketball standings as this time, the Big Red head to Ohio Wesleyan University for a 3 p.m. showdown on Saturday, February 11.
 
Senior Day Recap:
Will Hunter has played in 78 games while starting 72 in his career and has totaled 584 points, 303 rebounds, 156 assists, 64 steals and 18 blocks. He has scored a career-high 21 points twice in his career, first versus the College of Wooster in the shortened 2020-21 season and then again earlier this season versus Capital University. Hunter was named to the 2020-21 and 2021-22 NCAC Academic Honor Roll, was recognized as a Denison Top-50 Student Athlete in both 2021 and 2022, was a 2021-22 Denison Chi Alpha Sigma inductee, and was a member of the 2021-22 NABC Honors Court.