But whether UMHB couldn’t or wouldn’t play at a championship level early in the season is just a matter of semantics. The fact of the matter is that the Crusaders are finally looking like the team they thought they would be.
Senior wing Tilmon Gaddy scored 31 points - on his birthday, no less - to lead UMHB past No. 6-ranked Wisconsin-Whitewater 73-67 Tuesday evening in the championship game of the Cru Holiday Classic at Mayborn Campus Center.
The Crusaders (4-4) have won all three of the annual Holiday Classics, and to add their latest title they had to go toe-to-toe with the Warhawks (10-2) in a brutally physical first half and put together a rally in the final minutes of the second.
It was proof that UMHB’s psyche - wounded by the season’s 0-3 start - is beginning to heal.
“These guys believe in themselves now,” UMHB coach Ken DeWeese said. “We got slapped around early in the season. We got slapped and had to pout a little bit and feel sorry for ourselves. We had to grow individually so we could grow as a team, and I think we have.”
Added the 24-year-old Gaddy: “We have a sense of urgency now. It’s kind of hard to pinpoint exactly what it was that got us playing harder. But whatever it was, we found it and we’re about to run now. We’re about to go.”
Gaddy didn’t single-handedly win the game, but he put the Crusaders on his back when the outcome was the most in doubt.
With UW-W on a roll and up 63-59 with less than 4 minutes to go, Gaddy - who hadn’t scored in the previous 12 minutes - took over.
He drove to the left elbow and dropped in a floating jumper to pull UMHB within two, then knocked down a 3-pointer at the 3:03 mark to give the Crusaders a 66-65 lead.
After the Warhawks went back on top 67-66, the 6-5 Gaddy backed down a pair of defenders on the block for a bucket with 1:36 to go and hit a turnaround jumper 39 seconds later for a 70-67 lead.
A shot-clock violation by the Warhawks was followed by two Jason Wagner free throws with 13 seconds left, and Matt Caskey made one of two attempts at the line with 6 seconds remaining to cap it.
Gaddy - coming off a five-point performance in Monday’s 98-43 first-round rout of Lake Forest (Ill.) - scored 22 of his points in the first 25 minutes and the other nine in the final 4 minutes.
“I knew when I woke up this morning that I was going to have to have a big game,” he said. “There was no need for me to do a whole lot (Monday) because the game didn’t call for it. Today was a different situation and I had to bring it.”
His production along with 11 points each from Michael Ivey and Zane Johnston helped offset a hot-shooting second-half effort by UW-W.
The Warhawks hit seven 3s in the first 12½ minutes of the second half to shoot the Crusaders out of their 2-3 matchup zone, but UW-W managed only two field goals in the final 7:20 against UMHB’s man-to-man defense.
“I thought we handled the zone pretty well. Whatever (UMHB) wanted to do defensively, we just played against it,” UW-W coach Pat Miller said. “I thought we had some good looks late. We just didn’t make shots down the stretch and Tilmon Gaddy did.”
The game was tight and physical from the opening tip. UMHB led by as many as seven points in the first half after Gaddy’s three-point play with 3:24 to go before intermission, but the Crusaders didn’t have a another field goal before the break and were clinging to a 30-28 edge at the break.
The Warhawks started raining 3s in the second half, getting two apiece from Myles McKay, Phil Negri and Matt Goodwin. It was Goodwin’s two bombs in a span of about 50 seconds that forced UMHB out of the zone with 7 minutes left.
“We probably played more zone today than in any game I’ve ever coached anywhere,” said DeWeese, who has a 579-202 career record as a college coach. “(UW-W) does so much posting up and so much pushing around that we were trying to make them become a perimeter team. And boy we did.”
But the Warhawks’ post game was ineffective down the stretch, when Gaddy was taking over on the other end.
“I’m disappointed that they were more physical than us,” Miller said. “We have to be more physical.”
Following a 21-day break from competition before the Holiday Classic, the Crusaders will take a two-game winning streak into their return to American Southwest Conference play Friday at home against Texas-Tyler.
“I think we’re still in the process of finding out who we are,” DeWeese said. “But I think today we took a huge step in the right direction.”
