SpringfieldNewsSun.com

SPRINGFIELD — Everyone in the arena got Bill Brown's message. Even in the press box, you could hear him shout.

"Inside touches!" the coach reminded his players in the first half Monday, Feb. 16.

The Tigers' three top players around the basket — Michael Cooper, Mark Snyder and Alex Brandt — all shoot better 50 percent from the field. No other player on the team who gets regular minutes shoots better than 45 percent.

Brown lamented the lack of touches in the paint in the first half of Saturday's 67-53 loss to Wooster, and he saw a similar trend early in Monday's 80-69 victory over Indiana University-East at Pam Evans Smith Arena.

Cooper, Snyder and Brandt and the other big men shot 11-for-21 from the field against Wooster.

Meanwhile, "our perimeter guys had six field goals out of (26) shots," Brown said, "and at least two of the field goals they made were really good looks coming from the post back outside. So maybe if we'd got it inside a little bit more, we'd have shot more shots at a 50 percent clip, and our perimeter guys would have gotten more of those inside-out looks."

Cooper and Snyder each scored eight points on Monday, combining to make 7-of-14 shots.

Wittenberg's big scorer, however, was guard Chris Sullivan, who tallied a season-high 20 points on 6-of-8 shooting.

Even Sullivan knows Wittenberg's best offense comes from the paint.

"Only good things happen if we get the ball down to Mark and Alex down in the post," he said.

The Tigers improved to 12-11 with two regular-season games to play. They visit Wabash on Wednesday and host Kenyon at 3 p.m. Saturday.

"We set a goal after Wooster to get the next three wins and try to roll through the conference tournament," Sullivan said. "The tournament's wide open."