Wheeling, W. Va. - Through their first six games of the season, the Wheeling University Men's Basketball team (1-5, 0-3) has battled night in and night out. Of their five losses, four have been by nine points or less and they had another one come down to the wire on Wednesday against Davis & Elkins. The Cardinals will hit the road on Saturday looking to get over the hump as they take on West Virginia Wesleyan at 4 PM, looking for their first Mountain East Conference (MEC) win of the season.

Last time out, the Cardinals took on Davis & Elkins and it would come down to the final shot of the game as Wheeling fell 77-75. After trailing 60-49 with just over 10 minutes to play the Cardinals would slowly work their way back into the game. The deficit still sat at 15 with five minutes to play before the Cardinals went on a 12-4 run to make it a 74-72 game. The teams would trade three-pointers to make it 77-75 and the Cardinals would get the final possession with six seconds to play. They put up a three at the buzzer, but the ball just didn't bounce their way as they dropped to 0-3 in MEC play falling by that same score.

One of the big sparks to the Cardinal's comeback was freshman S.J. Hutchinson, who hit two big three-pointers during the 12-4 run and took the game's final shot. The Philadelphia native was three points shy of his career high putting up 11 points in the game, including a 3-5 effort from three-point range. Hutchinson currently sits fourth on the team shooting 38.9 percent from beyond the arc and has been a spark plug off the bench for the Cardinals this season. 

Leading the scoring once again for Wheeling was senior Brent Price, who put up 21 points and was the Cardinals most efficient shooter, going 8-13 from the floor and an impressive 4-5 from three-point range. While he is scoring at a high rate, the senior has also controlled the passing game, leading the Cardinals with five assists on the night and currently sits 12th in the conference in assists. Marcus Johnson also continued his successful season, scoring 20 points and bringing his average to 18.7 points per game. It was the third time this season that Johnson has scored 20+ points in a game as he continues to play big for the Cardinals under the net.

As the Cardinals continue their stretch of MEC play, they have a tough schedule ahead of them to end the 2022 portion. Of their final three conference games in 2022, two of those three come against teams in the top half of the conference in Charleston (2-1) and West Virginia State (3-0). Wheeling has been within nine points of their opponent in four of their five losses this season and has battled throughout in every game. Head Coach Chris Richardson is looking for his team to be playing their best basketball in January and February and the team is building towards that as December rolls on.

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