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Championship Central
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Recaps:
Charleston vs. W.Va. Wesleyan |
Glenville State vs. Fairmont State |
West Liberty vs. Concord |
WV State vs. Wheeling
Charleston 71 W.Va. Wesleyan, 59 | Final Stats
By Shawn Rine for MountainEast.org
WHEELING, W.Va. -- Second-seeded Charleston has made life miserable for the opposition this season with its conference-leading defense. No. 7 West Virginia Wesleyan was on the wrong end of a clamp-down for the third time this season, Friday during Mountain East Conference Tournament quarterfinal action at WesBanco Arena.
The Bobcats (12-17) hung around for almost the entirety of the matchup, but the Golden Eagles (24-5) limited their counterparts to 42-percent shooting -- just 20-percent from 3-point range -- and won the rebounding battle by a 44-32 margin, paving the way to a 71-59 victory.
"At this time of the year, you just want to survive and advance in March," said UC coach Dwaine Osborne, who prior to the game was present his conference coach of the year plaque. "I tip my hat to (Coach) Nick (Patella) and the Bobcats, who I thought played really hard and were competitive.
"They really gave us all that we wanted, but I have to think there were probably two stretches -- one late in the first half about three minutes long, and one in the second half -- where I thought we were really, really good.
"For the other 30 minutes or so, I think it was a pretty evenly played game."
The stats back up Osborne's claim.
With Wesleyan ahead 20-18, Charleston proceeded to drill its next five shots as part of a 14-2 run. When Luka Petrovic hit a late 3-pointer, the Golden Eagles, who entered third in last week's Atlantic Region rankings, settled on a 32-25 halftime advantage.
"We battled. There's no doubt about it," Patella said. "But they're a good team and they've got eight, 10 guys that come in.
"They've got all the pieces that they need and they're relentless in their approach."
A 13-6 run, culminating in a 3-pointer from Seth O'Neal (15 points, seven assists and five rebounds) early in the second half, allowed Charleston to go in front, 54-41, as the Bobcats went 3:31 without a field goal.
"They're a bunch of really good athletes that cover a lot of ground, quickly," Patella said of UC. "They're in good position.
"They're in good position off the ball and they bump you off your cuts. I think athleticism and physicality are definitely things on the defensive end that they can count on."
Wesleyan had one more run it, as a 3 from Jaylin Reed and a two from Petrovic sandwiched around a pair of Devon Robinson free throws for UC, trimmed the deficit to six at 60-54 with inside of four minutes remaining.
However, as it did all season by allowing a MEC-low 71.3 points per-game, the Charleston defense wouldn't allow it to succumb.
"I did think we were really good defensively," Osborne said. "I thought our game plan was good and we executed really well.
"For us, I feel like when we defend and rebound … man, I feel like we're going to be hard to beat."
The Golden Eagles' Robinson led all players with 24 points and 12 rebounds. He was joined in double figures by O'Neal and Lamont McManus, who tallied 12.
Petrovic and Daylin Lee paced Wesleyan with 18 points each, while Reed netted 10. Dusan Petrovic had seven points and a team-high 11 rebounds.
Fairmont State 77, Glenville State 70 | Final Stats
By Duane Cochran for MountainEast.org
WHEELING, W.Va. -- All season long Fairmont State has been the master of winning close games.
Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the Mountain East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament here at Wesbanco Arena the third-seeded Falcons did it again.
In a tight contest with sixth-seeded Glenville State, Fairmont State outscored the Pioneers 10-4 in the final 3:22 after GSC had pulled within one to record a hard-fought 77-70 victory.
The win improved Fairmont State to 23-6 on the year. It was also the Falcons' 16th victory by single digits this season and puts them in Saturday's semifinals against second-seeded Charleston at 8:15 p.m. The Golden Eagles (24-5) eliminated seventh-seeded West Virginia Wesleyan Friday, 71-59. FSU and UC split their regular-season series this year with each team winning on its home court.
“I think it's been really big for us,” Fairmont State's Kenzie Melko-Marshall, who finished with 22 points and seven rebounds, said. “Every time we have one of those kinds of wins the next day in practice I'll talk about how we need to work on finishing games and try to not be in situations like that. I'll tell you, though, it's proven that it's really helped us down the stretch.
“We've had multiple games where we've come back from 20 or 18 in the second half. I think as a team we're just prepared for any situation and we find a way to get it done.”
Glenville State, which lost for the eighth time in nine games, finished its season at 14-15.
Fairmont held the lead for nearly 33 minutes against the Pioneers Friday, but could never really pull away. With 10:43 to play Fairmont had built its biggest advantage in the contest at 56-46. GSC, however, refused to go away and led by Hegel Augustin clawed its way back into contention at 64-63 with 5:20 to go.
At one point in the second half Augustin, who led the Pioneers with 23 points, had scored 17 consecutive points himself to help keep his team close.
“It was a great basketball game,” first-year Fairmont State coach Tim Koenig, who led Notre Dame College to the MEC Tournament title last season, said. “We'd go on a run. Then they'd go on a run.
“They shot it well, especially in the second half. We just stayed the course and played hard. That last run they went on, we just stayed the course and really finished the game well. We just made plays down the stretch. That's the name of the game.”
The contest remained tight for the next three-plus minutes until Fairmont's Illisia Washington popped free on the left wing, took a pass from teammate Dale Bonner and buried a 3-pointer with 1:52 remaining to give his team a four-point lead it never relinquished.
“He was open and I believed he was going to hit the shot,” said Bonner, who led Fairmont State with 24 points, five rebounds and five assists. “I believe in everybody on this team. I knew he was going to hit it and he did.”
Second-year Glenville State coach Justin Caldwell says he's proud of the way his team competed Friday afternoon for 40 minutes.
“It was a battle,” Caldwell said. “It was back and forth and back and forth. Give Fairmont State credit. They made the plays they had to make down the stretch and we came up a little bit short.
“I felt like our guys fought and battled all the way to the end. We just couldn't get over that hump. They'd go up nine and we'd cut it to three. Then they'd get it to eight and we'd cut it to two. I think we even had it to one with about two-and-a-half to go and just couldn't make the plays. That's a credit to them. It's no discredit to our guys. They did everything they could and played as hard as they could for the full 40 minutes and I'm proud of that. That's a good basketball team we faced. There's a reason they've won 23 games this year.”
The 23 victories ties Koenig with Jerrod Calhoun for the most wins by a first-year coach in Fairmont State history.
The Falcons also got 15 points and five steals from sophomore guard Isaiah Sanders. His five steals tied him for the second-most in a conference tournament game.
The Pioneers, who buried 13 3-pointers in the game, also got 20 points from Steven Verplancken and 16 points and a game-high 13 rebounds from senior forward Phil Bledsoe, who was a big focal point of Fairmont's defense Friday.
“That was good game planning by them,” Bledsoe said. “I trust my teammates. I know they'll make shots. It's what we work on. My teammates played good today. I just feel like we played hard as a team.”
Fairmont State, which outscored the Pioneers 30-22 in the paint and 20-3 on fastbreak points, advances to the tournament semifinals for the fifth time in the seven-year history of the MEC Tournament. The Falcons have played for the league tournament title two times, but have not yet won an MEC Tournament championship.
West Liberty 100, Concord 85 | Final Stats
By Shawn Rine for MountainEast.org
WHEELING, W.Va. -- Luke Dyer came into the West Liberty program with the reputation of being a scorer. But in his three seasons as a Hilltopper, Dyer has sacrificed his own glory in favor of facilitating for his teammates.
Friday night at WesBanco Arena during a Mountain East Conference Tournament quarterfinal, Dyer went back to his roots. The nation's assist-to-turnover ratio leader hit 4 of 7 from 3-point range and 6 of 10 overall to score a career-high 16 points while adding four assists -- no turnovers -- and three steals, leading top-seeded West Liberty (25-4) to a 100-85 victory against No. 8 Concord (12-19).
"We put an emphasis on how we cut off the ball and a couple guys made a couple curl cuts off of me, which drew two defenders and got me a few shots," Dyer said. "It felt good.
"We had a pretty good offense for the most part, but we had a couple bad stretches.''
The Mountain Lions only wish there would have been more of the latter. West Liberty, which is ranked No. 11 in the country and is trying to become the first regular-season MEC champion to go on and win the tournament, shot 47.4 percent overall and 45.8 (11 of 17) from 3-point range on its way to improving to 18-0 this season when scoring 100-plus points.
For the most part, though, Concord played the Hilltoppers even. The Mountain Lions converted 53 percent of their shots, but were guilty of 24 turnovers resulting in 36 West Liberty points.
"Credit to (Coach) Ben Howlett because West Liberty is really, really good," Concord coach Todd May said. "We wanted to hold them under 10 offensive boards and they got 15.
"You hold a team like that to 47 (percent shooting) and you shoot 53? We did a lot of good things, though."
In the end, it was a pair of runs -- blackouts as they are called inside the WLU program -- that made all the difference.
The first occurred early in the first half, with the Mountain Lions holding a 17-15 upper hand. Led by a pair of Dyer 3s and another from Pat Robinson III, who finished with 22 points, eight rebounds, five assists and five steals, the Hilltoppers used a 15-2 burst to grab a 28-19 advantage. By halftime West Liberty held a 55-42 lead.
"It can go from an eight-point game and you have a couple turnovers, and all of a sudden you look up and it's 16 and you go, 'holy cow,' " May said. "I only get so many timeouts and you can't be taking them all the time.
"Those two runs, we weren't able to overcome. They're such a tough cover and they come at you in waves and wear you down."
Early in the second half Concord went 4:03 without a point, and the result was it got buried. Will Yoakum, who led everyone with 27 points, scored eight during a 19-3 West Liberty run that put it ahead, 78-52. The lead grew to as much as 30 with 11:35 to go, before the Mountain Lions chipped away.
"I'm glad that one's over. That's not the way I thought the game was going to go," Howlett said. "I thought we were going to come out a little sluggish because we had six days off, but I'm proud of our guys because I thought we had a good start.
"We did not play well for a four- or five-minute segment, but early in the second half I thought you saw West Liberty basketball."
Yoakum, a redshirt sophomore who came into his 63rd game 19 points shy of 1,000 for his career, almost had that total by halftime. Yoakum cashed two 3-pointers right out of the gate and finished the first 20 minutes with 17. He got the mark with a putback early in the second half to make it a 61-49 lead. Yoakum, who also contributed eight rebounds, is the 51st player in WLU history to accomplish the feat.
"It's all these guys next to me and Coach Howlett, because they have the confidence in me," Yoakum said. "It's really all I can ask for.
"As far as the game, I knocked a couple down early and it felt good."
Marlon Moore Jr. added nine points, six rebounds and three steals for the Hilltoppers.
Playing his final game, Trey Briscoe paced Concord with 26 points, six rebounds, three blocks and a pair of steals. Freshman Ethan Heller was solid with 17 points and Malik Johnson added 12 points and a trio of assists.
West Virginia State 67, Wheeling 61 | Final Stats
By Duane Cochran for MountainEast.org
WHEELING, W.Va. -- It was a tale of two halves here in Friday evening's last quarterfinal round game of the Mountain East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament at WesBanco Arena.
In the opening half fifth-seeded Wheeling could do little wrong and took control of the game with fourth-seeded West Virginia State taking a 35-27 lead into the halftime locker room.
The final 20 minutes, however, was a completely different story. The Yellow Jackets could do little wrong and Wheeling didn't do much of anything right. As a result, State wiped out the Cardinals' eight-point halftime lead with a 21-6 spurt to start the second half en route to a 67-61 victory.
The win improved the Yellow Jackets to 19-9 on the year and earned them a spot in Saturday's semifinals against top-seeded West Liberty at 6 p.m. The Hilltoppers (25-4) eliminated Concord in the quarterfinals Friday, 100-85. West Virginia State and West Liberty split their regular-season series.
“Wow,” said veteran West Virginia State coach Bryan Poore. “It really was a tale of two halves. The first half we couldn't put the ball in the basket and the second half we shot it quite a bit better.”
State shot just 33.3 percent from the field in the first half connecting on 10-of-30 field goals. Seven of those 10 field goals came in the game's first 6:26 as the Yellow Jackets built an early 16-9 lead. After that State managed just three field goals, two of which were 3-pointers from Glen Abram, who led the Yellow Jackets with 30 points. As a result, Wheeling closed the opening 13:34 on a 26-11 run to take an eight-point halftime lead.
“I thought we played excellent in the first half,” said first-year Wheeling coach Will Ryan, whose team was picked to finish last in the preseason MEC coaches poll, but ended up fifth and finished the season with a 14-13 record. “We got out and ran a little bit and got some easy baskets. We moved the ball pretty well and got some good looks. We could have finished better. We struggled finishing around the rim. Their length and athleticism bothered us.
“In the second half they sat in the zone the whole half and we couldn't throw it in the ocean. We struggled to score and didn't generate enough points from the free throw line. Unfortunately, we went through too many lulls in the second half and it ended up doing us in.”
State connected on 50 percent of its second-half field goal attempts (13-of-26), while Wheeling went just 9-of-31 from the floor (29 percent) in the final 20 minutes.
That, coupled with a 2-3 zone, which at times turned into a 2-1-2, allowed the Yellow Jackets to frustrate the Cardinals and get a 21-6 run in the first 11:20 of the second half which turned the tide of the game.
“In the second half we got switches on their bigs and got to the rim and then saw a couple of shots go through and that really helped us,” Abram said. “We had a good game plan and stuck with it.”
Poore says his team settled in and played better in the final 20 minutes.
“I think waiting around all day to play hurt us,” he said. “I don't think they changed their defense in the second half. I think more than anything it took us a half to settle in and to get kind of comfortable out there. Then the shots started falling.”
Wheeling guard Jordan Reid almost single-handedly kept his team in the game in the final 20 minutes. Reid, who led the Cardinals with 24 points, scored 15 of his team's 26 second-half points. No other Wheeling player had more than five points in the final 20 minutes.
“I was getting looks because of my teammates, but they just packed it in the paint a lot on me,” Reid said. “That's something I've got to get better at. I've got to shoot the ball better. The last four or five games they've been packing the paint on me or double-teamming me. We've just got to get better and hit shots. Coach has been preaching to us all season about hitting shots. We've been practicing and practicing, but they just haven't been able to fall for us at a high clip.”
Despite its second-half lulls the Cardinals were never really out of the game and with 32 seconds remaining had cut State's lead to three at 64-61 on a 3-pointer by Jarett Haines. Abram, though, went 3-of-4 at the foul line in the final 23 seconds to help keep Wheeling at bay.
West Virginia State's Anthony Pittman was the only other Yellow Jacket to reach double figures in the win. He finished with a double-double, scoring 11 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. Ten of his points came in the second half.
State also got nine points from both Frank Agyemang and Michal Seals. Seals also had a game-high five assists.
Besides Reid, Wheeling had Emmanuel Ansong and Haines reach double digits in the scoring column. Ansong finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds to post his fourth double-double of the year, while Haines ended up with 11 points and nine boards.
Saturday will be the first-ever appearance in the MEC Tournament semifinals for West Virginia State.