Men's Basketball

Wes Laidig

Jersey Number: 45
Class: Senior
Major: Sports Management
Home Town: Mishawaka, IN
High School: Penn
Position: F
Height/Weight: 6-4 / 210

“Wes has continued to make himself a better player each year. He is one of our best shooters and he creates a lot of matchup problems for our opponents. Wes is a blue collar guy who does so much for our team. We will need for him to overcome his size once again to battle inside against bigger defenders.” -Coach Lightfoot
 
As a Junior (08/09)
 
After a major improvement between his freshman and sophomore seasons, Wes seemed to take another step forward between his sophomore and junior seasons.
 
Wes posted personal bests in minutes played, 3-pointers made, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals, and points, with career-highs in every category except rebounds and free throws.
 
Wes has appeared in all 109 career games, more than any other current Pilot player. He finished the season with 768 career points and 374 career rebounds, within reach of both the 1,000 Point and 500 Rebound Clubs for his senior season.
 
Wes scored in double figures in 16 games, as many times as in his first two seasons combined. He scored a career-high 25 points against IUSB on 10-of-12 shooting on 12/17.
 
He then followed it up with a 23-point performance against St. Thomas on 10-of-15 shooting on 12/29 in the St. Thomas Invitational. December proved to be the hottest month for Wes, totaling 105 points (13.1 ppg) and 34 rebounds (4.2 rpg), shooting 46-of-77 (59.7%) in 8 games during the last month of 2008.
 
Wes tallied 5 or more rebounds in 7 games, including a season-high 8 rebounds against IUSB on 11/12.
 
Wes rewrote his own recordbooks, posting new career highs in points, assists, minutes played, field goals attempted, 3-pointers made, and matching his career highs in steals, blocks, field goals made, and 3-pointers attempted.
 
As a Sophomore (07/08)
 
Wes made a name for himself in his sophomore season, after a respectable freshman season. Bethel’s 6th Man for the season, Wes appeared in all 36 games for the second year in a row and averaged 17 minutes a game, the most by any bench player.
 
Wes more than doubled his scoring average (up to 8.4 per game) and raised his field goal percentage 14 points, up to .579. He also more than doubled his assists, up to 1.3 per game.
 
Wes scored in double figures in 14 games, including two 20+ point performances. His season-high came against St. Francis on 1/16, where he scored 22 points on a perfect 10-of-10 from the field and 2-of-2 from the free throw line.
 
Wes collected 5 or more rebounds in ten games, including a career-high 9 rebounds on 2/20 in a win over Grace.
 
Wes’s best game of the season came against Northwood on 12/29. He scored 20 points on 5-of-8 shooting, including a perfect 10-of-10 from the free throw line. He also grabbed 6 rebounds, including 4 offensive, in 22 minutes of action off the bench, earning him Battle at the Beach All-Tournament Team honors in the process.
 
Wes’s most impressive performances throughout the year came at the free throw line, where he was the team’s best and most consistent free throw shooter. He led the team at 81.8% made, including an incredible 30 consecutive free throws made from 12/29 to 1/19, only 13 away from tying the Bethel record held by Mike Miller.
 
Bethel Team Most Improved Player, Jimmy John’s ‘Sub of the Game’ Season Award
 
As a Freshman (06/07)
 
In a support role off the bench, Wes’s job was to provide a spark and some energy and emotion when he would check into the ball game, which is exactly what he did. Averaging 14 minutes a game, a lot of Wes’s contributions did not show up on the stat sheet. He averaged 3.4 points and 3.2 rebounds per game.
 
Appearing in all 36 games of the season, Wes came off the bench in all but one of those games, where he started against Trinity International on 12/9. Although he only scored 2 points in the game, Wes’s energy sparked the Pilots to an overtime victory. Wes scored in double figures only twice during the season, with his season-high of 11 points coming against Madonna University on 12/4, on 5-of-6 shooting from the field and 1-of-1 from the free throw line. He also scored 10 points against IUNW on 11/11.
 
Wes topped the 5-rebound mark in 10 games, including in 5 of his first 6 games as a collegiate basketball player. His season high came against St. Francis, where he tallied 1 offensive and 7 defensive rebounds, giving him 8 for the game.
 
Wes’s biggest rebound and assist of the season, and of his career, came in the NCCAA North-Central Regional Championship against Northwestern (MN) on 3/3.
 
With only 13 seconds left in double overtime and the Pilots down by one, Ryne Lightfoot missed a free throw to tie it, but Wes tracked down the loose ball for the offensive rebound and found teammate Tyler Brown open under the basket for the go-ahead and eventual game-winning basket.
 
Jimmy John’s ‘Sub of the Game’ Season Award