Conference tournaments are about basketball but also so much more: the fans, bands, cheerleaders, etc. The CAA Tournament is taking place in Washington, DC, this weekend and we could not be more excited to be there in person! HoopsHD will be covering all of the angles so you can look forward to a cascade of coverage in the days ahead. Jon Teitel gets us started with a recap of the only 1st round game on the bracket for Saturday.
You know that it is March because even the food gets taken up a notch: orange chicken/veggies/rice/noodles/cheesecake/peach tart! The Huskies beat the Tribe by a silly score of 62-28 just 10 days ago so everyone was curious to see how the rematch would go. By “everyone” I mean “the hundreds of fans who showed up to watch a pair of teams with a combined record of 13-47”, but even though there were plenty of good seats available it actually turned into a competitive little game at the end:
Let’s tip it off:
I was unsure if either team would bring its bands/cheerleaders/etc. since 1 of them would immediately be heading home after tonight’s game…but they were both well-represented:
There have been some recent revisions to COVID policies in DC, so after an entire year of watching Georgetown with masks they are now optional. Northeastern SR F Jason Strong knocked down a pair of threes in the 1st half to give his team a 1-PT lead at halftime…but since the score was 18-17 after 20 minutes (thanks to a combined 9-41 performance from the field) let’s just show a photo of him and move right along:
The crowd needed a pick-me-up in the 2nd half and got it via some human surfing!
Having watched Georgetown SR Kaiden Rice lose each of his past 20 games, it was rather refreshing to see his younger brother (William & Mary FR Tyler Rice) come to DC and perform well under pressure. He made a pair of threes in the 2nd half, finished with 15 PTS/0 turnovers, and did his family proud:
I knew that his teammate Brandon Carroll could play some defense (he is 1 of 9 players in the nation with at least 1.4 SPG & 1.4 BPG), but the 6’7” wing showed off the entire arsenal. He kept getting to the basket for layup after layup and finished with a double-double (10 PTS/12 REB):
The Tribe pulled ahead by 5 PTS midway through 2nd half before Northeastern responded from both inside and outside. Mr. Inside was Chris Doherty: the Notre Dame transfer only took 1 shot in the opening stanza, and I STILL do not know if he can score from outside the paint, but he kept spinning/driving to the hoop and putting the ball in the basket with either hand. Mr. Outside was Shaquille Walters: born in London, began his college career at Santa Clara, then moved 3000 miles to the northeast and made a pair of shots from behind the arc (1 from the corner and 1 from the top of the key) to help the Huskies fight all the way back and send it to OT:
Northeastern had not won a single game away from home since before Thanksgiving (a big reason that they are the #9 seed), but Doherty simply refused to let his team lose. He converted an old-fashioned 3-PT play in OT en route to a perfect game with 10-10 FG (joining David Robinson as the only players to put up such stats in a CAA tourney game!), a career-high 26 PTS, and a 68-63 win.
When Doherty played in South Bend 3 years ago he got to face Duke, so in the postgame press conference I figured that I should ask him what he remembers about facing Coach K: he said that he recalled having to face Zion Williamson (26 PTS/9 REB/4 BLK in a 22-PT win by the Blue Devils), and was stunned to see on Twitter yesterday that tickets for the Krzyzewski home finale tonight were going for $80,000! When Rice stepped onto the podium I inquired as to whether he had a chance to catch up with his brother in DC, but he did not get to do so since Kaiden was busy scoring 9 PTS off the bench in a loss at Xavier. Maybe next time I will remember to bring my camera to the press conference: fortunately, I have 7 more games in the next 3 days to get it right! That’s a wrap for the 1st round, but check back tomorrow for a quarterfinal quadruple-header!