By Murray Gleffe
Correspondent
DE PERE — The St. Norbert College men’s basketball team was 20 minutes away from an automatic NCAA Division III National Tournament berth.
The Green Knights saw a seven-point halftime lead evaporate in an 84-71 loss to Ripon College in the championship game of the Midwest Conference Tournament Feb. 29 at the Mulva Events Center.
The Red Hawks blitzed the second-half nets in connecting on 67 percent of their shots.
“It was a combination of getting into foul trouble and their hot shooting to start the second half,” said St. Norbert College head coach Gary Grzesk. “They were more aggressive by getting into us, and they finished around the rim.”
Jared Murphy came off the bench to lead the Green Knights in scoring with 20 points and five rebounds.
Connor Curtis added 10 points.
The Red Hawks were paced by Trent Jones’ 24 points.
Post player Owen Theune finished with a double-double for Ripon, scoring 21 points and adding 11 rebounds.
Ripon scored the first five points of the game before St. Norbert evened the game at 11-11 when Michael Payant threw home a one-handed flush.
A bit later, Jones nailed a triple as the shot clock expired to give the Red Hawks a 20-17 lead with 8:44 left until halftime.
The Green Knights kicked their offense into high gear by going on a 10-0 spurt to take a seven-point lead, with Jacob Bolwerk and Murphy doing much of the damage.
St. Norbert took a 37-30 lead into halftime.
In the first half, the Green Knights shot 14 free throws to Ripon’s zero attempts.
Everything changed immediately to start the second half, as St. Norbert was whistled for six fouls to Ripon’s zero.
It was also evident the message at halftime for Ripon was perhaps to pound the ball down low into Theune who perfected just about every pivot in the paint in finishing with layups around the rim.
With the Green Knights still holding a 45-38 lead in the first three minutes of the second half, Ripon went on a game-changing, 16-4 run, paced by the inside-out game of Jones and Theune.
St. Norbert would never recover.
Ripon distanced itself further, going up as many as 18 points.
The Red Hawks closed the door down the stretch by nailing 9-of-12 free throws.
The Green Knights still have an outside chance for an at-large selection into the national tournament with the pairings being released Monday, March 2.
“I’m most proud of our consistency this season,” said Grzesk. “We started 0-2, and we lost only one game in between up until today. I’m not sure if the committee will pick us, but I do know what an NCAA team looks like, and we are one of them.”
Box score
Ripon College: 30, 54—84
St. Norbert College: 37, 34—71
Red Hawks: Jones 24, Theune 21, Steffes 13, Rutkowski 11, Kostroski 8, Mahone 4, Jorgensen 3.
Green Knights: Murphy 20, Curtis 11, Bolwerk 9, Payant 9, Ciriacks 7, Beirne 7, Geenen 6, Nicklaus 2.