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2008 NEC Men's Basketball Tournament
Quarterfinal Recaps - March 6, 2008
Quarterfinals
#1 Robert Morris 64, #8 Monmouth 50
Moon Township, PA -- Nursing a 43-41 lead with 5:49 to play, the Robert Morris University men’s basketball team used a 17-3 run to surge past No. 8 seed Monmouth Thursday night, 64-50, in a 2008 Northeast Conference Tournament quarterfinal game at the Charles L. Sewall Center. RMU improved to 26-6 overall on the season with the win and will host No. 4 seed Mount St. Mary’s Sunday, March 9, for a 3:00 p.m. contest that will air live on FSN Pittsburgh. The Hawks finish their season with a record of 7-24.
Senior guard Tony Lee (Boston, Mass. / Charlestown), named the 2008 NEC Player of the Year Wednesday, scored 10 points during the deciding run for the Colonials. He scored seven straight points, including a three-pointer, to push Robert Morris ahead, 47-41, and back-to-back three-pointers from junior guard Jeremy Chappell (Cincinnati, Ohio / Northwest) and Lee gave the Colonials a 53-44 advantage with 2:57 to play.
RMU sealed the victory at the free-throw line, hitting nine of its 11 opportunities in the final 2:23 of action. Monmouth owned a 30-28 lead with 14:47 remaining after James Hett converted a three-point play thanks to a foul by Chappell. Sophomore guard Mezie Nwigwe (Hyattsville, Md. / High Point) answered with a jumper to tie the score, 30-30, and after Dutch Gaitley hit one of two tries from the charity stripe, the Colonials took the lead for good, 33-31, on a three-pointer by sophomore guard Jimmy Langhurst (Willard, Ohio / Willard) at the 13:25 mark of the second half.
Monmouth jumped out to a 12-4 lead in the first six minutes of action as six different Hawks scored. The lead remained eight, 18-10, with 6:25 left in the first half after a jumper by Nick DelTufo, but a 7-0 Robert Morris surge closed the Colonials within one, 18-17. Langhurst hit a three-pointer, while senior center Freddie Harris (Decatur, Ala. / Lawson State C.C.) and freshman guard Gary Wallace (Montclair, N.J. / Seton Hall Prep) each scored layups.
Gaitley hit a pair of free throws to give Monmouth a 20-17 lead, but Chappell knotted the game, 20-20, with a three-pointer with just 1:23 left before halftime. The Hawks owned a 23-20 edge with less than a minute to play, but RMU was able to take the lead at the break, 24-23, thanks to solid defense and free throws. Harris converted a pair at the charity stripe with 21 seconds left before halftime, and after a steal by junior guard Bateko Francisco (Paris, France / Fort Scott J.C.), Lee’s pair from the free-throw line with 10 seconds remaining gave the Colonials the lead at halftime, 24-23.
Neither club led by more than three in the opening eight minutes of the second half, but a pair of free throws from senior forward A.J. Jackson (Monessen, Pa. / Monessen) edged the Colonials ahead, 35-31, with 11:11 to play. It was part of an 8-0 surge that gave Robert Morris a 38-31 lead with 10:13 remaining. Monmouth cut its deficit to two on a pair of occasions with under seven minutes to go before RMU’s deciding run.
Lee and Langhurst paced the Colonials with 15 points each, while Yaniv Simpson took home game-high honors in scoring with 18 points for the Hawks. Lee and Langhurst each hit four of their nine shots from the field, while Langhurst was a perfect 4-for-4 from the free-throw line. Neither team shot well, as Robert Morris converted 33.3 percent (17-for-51) of its shots, while Monmouth finished 15-for-48 (31.3 percent).
Quarterfinals
#2 Wagner 71, #7 Long Island 62
Staten Island, NY -- Junior swingman Jamal Smith (Baltimore, MD/ Towson Catholic) drained a three-point jumper with 1:41 left to play Thursday night to give Wagner a 61-58 lead as the Seahawks survived a major scare by LIU before holding off the Blackbirds, 71-62, in advancing to the NEC semifinals.
Wagner added to its school-record win total in improving to 23-7 on the season. LIU finishes its season at .500 with a mark of 15-15.
The Seahawks will play host to No. 3 seed Sacred Heart (17-13) on Sunday at 7:00 pm in an NEC semifinal match-up. The winner of this contest plays for the NEC Championship by meeting the winner of Sunday’s Robert Morris- Mount St. Mary’s game. Top-seeded Robert Morris (26-6) out-lasted No. 8 Monmouth 64-50 and will host a Mount St. Mary’s (16-14) team that knocked off Quinnipiac 80-70.
The NEC Championship game will take place on the home court of the highest-remaining seed on Wed.., March 12. Tip-off is set for 7:00 pm and the game will be televised to a national audience on ESPN 2.
Following the Smith three-pointer, which answered a three-pointer by LIU’s Jaytornah Wisseh that had tied the game at 58-58 with 1:53 left, senior forward Durell Vinson (Vineland, NJ/ St. Augustine Prep) blocked two shots, rebounded a missed three-point jumper by Eugene Kotorobai and then beat everyone down the floor, hitting a lay-up on the other end with 57.5 seconds left. Senior guard Mark Porter (Atlantic City, NJ/ St. Augustine Prep) then hit two free throws with 40.4 seconds left to put the Seahawks up 65-58 and cap a 7-0 run that sealed the victory before a spirited crowd at the Spiro Sports Center.
"Being an upperclassmen, Jamal Smith made that shot. I think if he misses that shot, we rebound and score, and think that’s our game," said LIU head coach Jim Ferry. "I thought that was really a big swing.
"I thought Jaytonah and Kellen did a tremendous job bringing us back down the stretch. But you miss a shot, here or there and it’s tough. It was a just a tough, hard-fought game. I thought we missed a lot of lay-ups early in the game.
"I was happy as heck at halftime," Ferry added. "We couldn’t throw it in the ocean, we missed 30 shots. I said, ’Guys, we’re only down 13. If we just guard, we’re going to get back into it. We talked early in the week about making our lay-ups and free throws and early in the game we missed some lay-ups and some wide open looks."
Porter made 6-8 free throws in the final minute to finish with a team-high 21 points. He narrowly missed recording a triple-double, finishing with 10 rebounds and nine assists. Vinson recorded his NEC-leading 14th double-double of the season, totaling 14 points and 15 rebounds. It was also his 28th career double-double which is also tops among active NEC players. He also blocked five shots which tied his career high.
Smith and senior forward James Ulrich (Mt. Laurel, NJ/ Camden Catholic) scored 14 points apiece.LIU was able to keep the game close throughout the balance of the second half by forcing 10 second-half turnovers and hitting 14 of 19 from the free throw line while Wagner got to the line 17 times, making 11.
"That’s a team that matches up well against us. We’ve had three tough games with them. We did a better job rebounding tonight although they still got 18 offensive rebounds," said Wagner head coach Mike Deane. "We did a good job in our halfcourt defense and give Wisseh some credit, he made some big plays down the stretch to get them back in. I think Mark (Porter) was a little tired and he has every right to be a little tired.
"On the other end, he gave another MVP-like performance in my opinion," Deane continued. "He’s done it all year long and he’s one assist away from a triple-double, that’s a pretty good night…there aren’t to many players better in the last five minutes of close games. Having said that, obviously the biggest shot of the game was Smitty’s (Smith) three-pointer after the tied. It gave us a little surge and put us back in control.
"Durell hen made a tremendous defensive play, two blocks back-to-back and then hits the lay-up," he added.
Wisseh, a sophomore guard from Brooklyn, led LIU with a game-high 22 points. His three-pointer that tied the score 58-58 capped a 15-5 LIU run that included seven made free throws in 10 attempts.
Wagner out-shot LIU 48%-29% and won the rebounding battle, 47-44.
Wagner played a crisp first half in racing out to 35-22 lead at intermission led by a stifling defensive effort that limited the Blackbirds to 10-40 shooting (25%). Porter paced Wagner with an efficient first-half performance, totaling 11 points, five rebounds and three assists and did not commit a single turnover while playing all 20 minutes.
Smith chipped in with nine first-half points while Vinson was active in the low post, tallying eight first-half points while pulling down eight rebounds.
Quarterfinals
#3 Sacred Heart 84, #6 Central Connecticut State 71
Fairfield, CT -- Senior forward Brice Brooks (Silverdale, WA) poured in a game-high 22 points, while senior guard Drew Shubik (Stoystown, PA) added 15 points and eight assists to lead #3 Sacred Heart University to a 84-71 win over #6 Central Connecticut State University in the quarterfinals of the Northeast Conference Tournament Thursday night.
Sacred Heart, now 17-13, jumped out to a 14-4 lead after a three by sophomore Ryan Litke (Windsor, CT) with just under six minutes gone in the game. A Marcus Palmer (Los Angeles, CA) jumper for Central with 11:23 left in the half cut the Pioneer lead 16-12. The Pioneers used an 8-0 spurt to double up the Blue Devils again, 24-12, with 8:07 to go in the half. Senior guard Drew Shubik (Stoystown, PA) and junior Ryon Howard (Bronx, NY) both hit treys in the run.
Sophomore Joe Seymore (New Castle, DE) tried to shoot the Blue Devils back into the game and canned back-to-back threes to cut the Pioneer lead to 32-24 with 2:37 left in the half. After the second trey, SHU coach Dave Bike called a 30-second timeout to break the CCSU momentum. The Pioneers scored the last seven points of the game, five of them by sophomore Chauncey Hardy (Middletown, CT) to take a 39-24 lead into the intermission.
"We scored, than they would,” said Bike. “I thought in the first half they hurt us too many times with guarding off the ball. We knew we had to find our open guys. It was one of the huge timeouts called this year for sure."
The Pioneers widened the lead to 50-31 in the first four minutes of the second half. Shubik canned a three with 12:46 left to give SHU a 57-39 lead. It also put Shubik over the 1,000-point mark for his career.
A Danny Powell (Stratford, CT) floater in the lane with 8:42 left cut the SHU lead to 63-51, but Corey Hassan (Merrimack, NH) answered quickly at the other end for the Pioneers. That basket was part of a 14-3 run that saw the Pioneers take their biggest lead at 77-54 with 5:03 left.
Senior Tristan Blackwood (Toronto, ONT), the NEC’s all-time leader in three-point shooting, led Central with 15 points, nine of them from the free throw line. He was just 2-10 from the floor. Freshman Aaron Hall (Syracuse, NY) finished with 13, while Seymore added 12. Central, which finishes the season 14-16, shot 41 percent from the field (24-58).
“The situation came up where we had to play them twice in a row and I didn’t want that,” said co-captain Shubik. “Even though they are having a so-called down year, Coach Dickenman would get them going. We watched tape and came out with a plan to contest shots and we made his (Blackwood’s) day hard.”
“We fooled around with defending Blackwood a little bit,” Bike said. “We put Drew at the top and Ryon Howard at the free throw line, so we bothered him and that’s what we were looking for.”
Hassan finished with a career-high 18 points, while Hardy finished with 12. The Pioneers committed just eight turnovers and shot 55 percent from the floor, including 66 percent in the second half (19-29). SHU turned the ball over just eight times.
“We couldn’t stop them tonight,” said Central coach Howie Dickenman. “We played a good team. Even when they brought players off the bench we couldn’t stop them. It just seemed like our young players were like deers in the headlights.”
The Pioneers will face #2 Wagner College in the semifinals on Sunday at 7:30 pm on Sunday on Staten Island.
Quarterfinals
#4 Mount St. Mary's 80, #5 Quinnipiac 70
Emmitsburg, MD -- Senior Jean Cajou scored 20 points to lead fourth-seeded Mount St. Mary’s to an 80-70 win over fifth-seeded Quinnipiac in the Northeast Conference Quarterfinals at Knott Arena on Thursday night. It was the first home playoff win for the Mount since 1996.
DeMario Anderson’s jumper gave Quinnipiac (15-15) an early 10-5 lead, but the Mount responded with a 17-0 run to take a 22-10 advantage. Jeremy Goode and Cajou kick started the run with back-to-back three-point baskets.
Quinnipiac fought back, using a 10-1 run of its own to cut the Mount lead to 26-24 with 6:52 left in the half after a James Feldeine three-pointer. Mount St. Mary’s responded to push the margin back to 10 (35-25) and went to the locker room with a 37-33 lead.
Feldeine converted a fast-break dunk 2:05 into the second half to cut the Mount’s lead to 39-37, but that would be as close as the Bobcats would get the rest of the way. Mount St. Mary’s took control of the game with a 13-0 run over the next 7:40 of the contest for a 52-37 lead. The Mount led comfortably the rest of the way with the closest Quinnipiac coming was 73-65 with 1:17 on the clock.
Cajou hit 5-of-11 from the field and 8-of-11 from the charity stripe for his game-high 20 points, his second-straight 20-point game of the season. Kelly Beidler chipped in 15 points, eight rebounds and three blocks in his best game of the season while Goode finished with 15 points and five assists. Vann also reached double figures for the Mount with 11 points while Sam Atupem chipped in nine points and nine rebounds for the Mount.
Anderson, the leading scorer in the Northeast Conference, posted 21 points, seven rebounds and five assists to pace Quinnipiac. Casey Cosgrove added 12 points and Feldeine 11 points and eight rebounds.
The Mount shot 44.6 percent from the field in the game and was 24-of-39 (61.5 percent) from the foul line. Quinnipiac shot 41.3 percent overall and was 13-of-21 (61.9 percent) at the charity stripe.
The Mount will face top-seeded Robert Morris in the NEC semifinals on Sunday, March 9, at 3:00 p.m. at the Sewall Center in Moon Township, Pa.
Game Notes...The Mount has clinched its first winning season since 1996-97...That year, the Mount posted a 14-14 record...The Mount has advanced to the NEC Semifinals in each of the past two seasons.
Mount St. Mary’s Head Coach Milan Brown
“I am excited for our guys. We ‘re starting to achieve some of the goals we set up at the beginning of the year. This is a big game, but this isn’t the end goal for us. We still have some work to do.”
Quinnipiac Head Coach Tom Moore
“Mount St. Mary’s was terrific tonight and was clearly the better team. They played with a lot of energy and a lot of emotion.”
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