All-Access at the CAA Tournament: 2nd Round Saturday

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 keeps things going with a recap of the 2nd round quadruple-header on Saturday.


The pregame meal was perfectly mediocre: chicken wrap/chips/chocolate chip cookie/lemonade.
Let’s tip off a LONG day of games:

GAME #1: William & Mary vs. Elon
Elon big man Sam Sherry kept his team in it during the 1st half by getting to the rim for a ton of put-backs/dunk/layups and finished the game with the 1st double-double of his career (15 PTS and a career-high 12 REB). William & Mary 3-PT specialist Gabe Dorsey missed his 7th straight game due to injury but the Tribe appear to have found a reputable replacement in SR Miguel Ayesa. After making the very 1st start of his career last Saturday, the Spanish Sharpshooter made 4 threes in the 1st half to give his team a 34-27 halftime lead. In the 2nd half Ayesa remained “en fuego”, racking up his 3rd straight game with 5+ 3PM (after going 0-9 combined from behind the arc vs. Stony Brook/Northeastern last month). It was hard to keep up with all of his accomplishments: he tied his career-high with 23 PTS and tied his school’s all-time tourney record for 3PM in 1 game that dates back to 1988. The Tribe pulled away in the final 20 minutes to win 73-51, and also won the award for best performance by a band/cheerleaders as they had 1 of the latter surf over a rolling mass of many of the former:


In the postgame press conference I asked Miguel how he was able to regain his confidence over the past 3 games. He smiled, patted his coach on the shoulder, and said “This guy!” He gave credit to Coach Fischer for telling him to keep shooting, and it also helped that he saw some shots go in during practice.


I tried to see if Coach Fischer would give me an injury update on the only player who scored in double-digits during their loss to Hofstra in January (Dorsey). He admitted that he had been optimistic in the past…but has gotten less and less so over time, as all of his injured players have been “day-to-day” for the past 3 weeks.


GAME #2: Drexel vs. Monmouth
The good news for Monmouth is that they scored 100 PTS in Friday’s win over Hampton. The bad news is that they did not score a single point today until Jack Collins made a jumper with 9:15 left in the 1st half…at which point they were trailing 18-2. The Hawks missed 19 of their 1st 20 shots and trailed 29-6 before making a nice run before halftime to close the gap to 35-19. It was an ugly war of whistles that saw the 2 teams commit a combined 30(!) fouls in the 1st 20 minutes. The Hawks finally got some offense going in the 2nd half in the form of Myles Foster, who kept getting into the lane for layup after layup. Unfortunately, Coach King Rice did not stick around to see the end of the game, as he was ejected during the under-8 timeout. Fortunately for the Dragons, they had 2-time conference DPOY Amari Williams, who also showcased his all-around game en route to a double-double with 16 PTS/6-7 FG/11 REB/2 STL/1 BLK. They also have the 2nd-best basketball player in Philly named Justin Moore (Villanova’s version has a slight edge) as Drexel showed some Philly Pride with an easy 64-45 win.

In the postgame press conference I wondered if Amari was excited for the revenge game after his team’s 1-PT 2-OT loss to UNCW 16 days ago that included a blown 22-7 1st half lead. He agreed that it was painful because it was their 1st loss at home all season, but they have put it behind them and know what they have to do to come out with a win this time around.


Coach Rice brought his son to the interview room so I was curious what lesson he wanted his son to learn today. He said that “you gotta keep your cool” and have to be there for your playees, which he did not do today. He watches plenty of games on TV and sees that every coach cusses the refs out…but he does not.


GAME #3: North Carolina A&T vs. Stony Brook
The pregame dinner was delicious: make-your-own-fajitas (although they ran out of tortillas)/rice/tres leches cake/lemonade. The Aggies came out of the gate red-hot, building a 10-0 lead before Stony Brook coach Geno Ford was forced to call a timeout to slow them down less than 4 minutes into the game. It was 14-0 after 6 minutes until Frankie Policelli finally made a corner 3 to stop the bleeding, followed by his team making a nice run of its own to make it 14-10. North Carolina A&T SR Kam Woods did a little of everything in the 1st half, heading into halftime with 11 PTS/5 REB/3 AST/3 STL…and a 31-28 lead. However, it did not last long because the 2nd half belonged to Policelli. After making a pair of trifectas in the 1st 20 minutes he made 4 more in the final 20 minutes to tie his career-high with 6 3PM. In the battle of stars Woods performed very well with 25 PTS/8 REB/3 STL…yet it somehow paled in comparison to Policelli’s 30 PTS/16 REB/3 STL. Stony Brook dominated the 2nd half and won 76-61.

In the postgame press conference I begged Coach Ford to share what he told his team during the timeout he called when they were down 10-0. He joked that his players do not listen too often to him anyway! He claimed that he just talked about having a “next play” mentality and that when his leadership does its thing is on the floor it really helps everyone. The Aggies sped his team up a little bit but they hung in there. Their last tourney game took place during COVID so he can talk about intensity all he wants but his guys will still need to play much better tomorrow.


Also, a special shout-out to CAA Assistant Commissioner for Communications Miles McQuiggan, who confirmed how historic Policelli’s performance was. The last player to have a 30/15 game in the CAA tourney was some guy at Navy back in 1986…named David Robinson!


GAME #4: Delaware vs. Northeastern
I am sure that it was an enjoyable game…for people who had not spent the past 10 hours at the arena! That is a wrap for today, but check back tomorrow for the quarterfinal quadruple-header featuring each of the top-4 seeds.