UW-La Crosse Mens Basketball

By ERIC ANDERSON
Of the Tribune staff

The good night for the UW-Oshkosh forward helped make UW-La Crosse coach Charlie Gross' evening simply horrible.

Harding hit for a game-high 17 points, including a 4-for-6 effort from the three-point line, and the Titans blew open a tight game with an 18-4 run to start the second half as they disposed of Gross' Eagles 71-52 in a WSUC game in front of 368 fans at Mitchell Hall.

``It felt pretty good to come back here,'' said Harding, who missed last year's game in La Crosse after pulling his hamstring in warm-ups. ``I'm just glad my shots were falling and I'm really glad we won the game.''

Gross had a rather different take on the game.

``There are no positives that we can take from this game,'' he said. ``We took a step backwards and we need this team to always move forward.

``When you get beat up the way we did, it brings some mental baggage with it. Hopefully that we can get rid of and try to look at what caused us to not have success on both ends of the floor in the second half.''

It was the second straight conference setback for UW-L (1-2 WSUC, 9-2 overall), which played without key reserve Ryan Eklund due to a groin injury and saw leading scorer Chuck Simpson struggle with the flu. Simpson, averaging 14.2 points per game, played only 4 minutes and missed his only shot.

With sophomore Steve Tracy inserted into the starting lineup in Simpson's place, UW-L stayed close throughout the first half.

Center Melvin Veasley had seven of his 10 points before the break, and the stingy Eagles defense clamped down on Oshkosh's inside game. UW-L also kept high-scoring Titans guard Dennis Ruedinger, who came in averaging 17.4 points per game, to 0-for-7 shooting and two points in the first half.

But Harding more than made up for it.

The 6-foot-6 junior scored nine of the first 17 points for Oshkosh (4-0, 11-0) -- all coming on three-pointers -- and finished with 11 in the first half.

``We really try to establish an inside game, and I think La Crosse did a good job of taking that away from us early on,'' said Oshkosh coach Ted Van Dellen, whose team entered the game leading NCAA Division III teams in three-point shooting percentage at 50.7 percent.

``I thought we started relying on the jumper a little too much, but we've got kids that can really shoot the ball. Harding's a prime example -- he's a four-man that can step outside and shoot it.''

Ruedinger came alive in the second half, pouring in seven points in the half-opening run and ending up with 13 points despite shooting 2-for-12 from the field. Freshman forward Brad Clark, last year's AP State Player of the Year who nearly went the University of Wisconsin, capped the rally with a three-point bomb with 11 minutes, 9 seconds left that made it 46-32.

From there, the closest the Eagles would get was 12 as they allowed a season-high 71 points -- well above the Eagles' average of 54.8 points allowed per game.

``In the first half, we probably did a better a job preventing them good looks,'' Gross said. ``In the second half they spread us out a little bit more, got some penetration, made us help and we didn't recover real well. They got second looks ... and they took advantage of every opportunity they had to jab a knife into our backs in the second half.''

About the only bright spot for UW-L was the debut of Paul Manchester.

Manchester, a 1995 Logan High School graduate and the 1994 All-Coulee Region player of the year, came off the bench for the Eagles midway through the first half. The 6-1 guard was 1-of-5 from the floor in 10 minutes of action in his first collegiate game after transferring from UW-Platteville.

``That was his first official game since his senior year in high school,'' Gross said of Manchester. ``I'm sure there were butterflies and awkwardness. He was thrown into a situation because of a lack of perimeter players and I feel there are good things to come Paul and I think we saw that in the latter part of the game.''[ql]

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