Round 1 men: CUA, Wash U hold on

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Mar 01, 2024
The largest crowd for a basketball game at John Carroll in two decades saw an exciting game and made it difficult for SUNY New Paltz at the same time.
John Carroll photo by Jose Figueroa
 

The day opened with Rowan rallying past Carnegie Mellon, and four overtime games later, it ended with Whitworth eliminating the No. 8 team in the country on its home floor. In between, UT-Dallas extended its life as a Division III basketball program for another day, Penn State-Harrisburg was a first-round winner again, Illinois College rallied from seven down to win at the buzzer, and Washington University and Catholic survived at home in overtime with John Carroll doing the same in regulation.

Catholic hadn't won an NCAA Tournament game since 2015, and it looked for a good while as though that drought were going to continue. Worcester State started the afternoon 11-for-19 from the floor in building up a 30-9 lead at the Raymond A. DuFour Center with just under six minutes left in the first half. But that didn't last. Dan Buckley came off the bench to help spark an 18-2 run to close the first half, amd the Cardinals (25-3) came out strong in the second half as well to extend that run to 30-4 and go up by five, 39-34. Catholic went up by as many as 12 on a Tommy Kelly basket with 9:17 left before the Lancers fought their way back into it. Aaron Nkrumah, who scored a game high 32 points, put together a string of eight points to make it a three-point game. Nkrumah also had a putback slam as regulation wound down, and he hit another putback to tie the game with 28 seconds left. 

Worcester State landed the first blow of overtime as Nkrumah scored with 3:39 remaining, but Kelly hit a top-of-the-key three-pointer after a Sechi offensive board to push Catholic ahead with 3:02 to play. Brandon Goris hit a pair of free throws to put Worcester State back on top, but Buckley hit a massive pull-up jumper to put Catholic back in the lead. With 1:55 on the overtime clock, Sechi sent a three-ball through the net to make it a two-possession game. Worcester State would bring it back to two twice more, but a Hafemeister free throw with 21 seconds left was the final point scored in the 75-72 overtime victory. 

Washington University needed overtime to advance in St. Louis as well, as Wisconsin Lutheran rallied from an 11-point deficit to force overtime before the host Bears advanced with a 71-68 win. Wisconsin Lutheran went on a pair of 6-0 mini-runs in the second half to tie the game at 56 with 4:36 to play, and it was tied again at 60 going into overtime. The Warriors (24-5) took their first lead of the game in the opening minute of overtime with a jumper from Jacob Stoltz. WLC later got a Stoltz free throw and a Grayson Goetz jumper to make it 65-62 midway through the overtime. But Kyle Breedon hit a key 3 to tie the game at 65, and the Bears pushed the run to 7-0, going up 69-64 with 15 seconds left. Another Stoltz three made it a one-point game but Hayden Doyle hit two free throws to push the lead to 71-58. Wisconsin Lutheran moved the ball into the frontcourt but threw one too many passes and ran out of time before getting a shot off.

The Tony DeCarlo Center was hopping at John Carroll, as 2,224 fans packed the place to see John Carroll edge SUNY New Paltz 85-81. It was the largest crowd of the night in D-III, by a significant margin, and the largest crowd at JCU since the Blue Streaks hosted Calvin in the first round in 2004 en route to a trip to the Final Four. New Paltz hung with the Blue Streaks (26-2) by hitting five three-pointers in the second half, trailing by just two in the closing minutes. That possession was followed by a John Carroll turnover, one of 14 on the game, but Luke Chicone picked off a pass, was fouled, and hit two free throws to keep the Hawks (20-8) at bay. A.J. Knight made an acrobatic layup for New Paltz to again cut the lead to two, but Chicone responded by getting past two defenders and hitting Eller for an open layup. The Hawks answered off a Rylan Blondo layup, forcing them to foul Luke Frazier on the inbounds pass. He responded with two free throws as well, two of the 14 that JCU relied upon in the second half. Chicone led all scorers with 24 points and nine assists. Kobe Bogart led New Paltz with 16 points and three rebounds.

JCU will play No. 10 Calvin, which connected on 13 of 23 attempts from three-point range in pulling away for a 93-78 win against No. 17 Elmhurst. Calvin went 8-of-12 from three-point range in the first half, vaulting into a 48-33 halftime lead. Calvin extended its lead to 21 points in the second half as sophomore Jalen Overway began to get loose in the paint for the Knights. Elmhurst made a late run, closing to within 10 at 86-76 with 1:50 remaining but got no closer as the Knights sealed the win with timely free throw shooting down the stretch. Overway finished with a game-high 24 points on 9-of-15 shooting to go with eight rebounds, while Luka Ressler pumped in 21 points.

Ja'Zere Noel had 22 points and Khalif Meares scored 20 as Rowan overcame a double-digit deficit to defeat Carnegie Mellon 81-69 at Catholic University. Carnegie Mellon (16-10) built upon a 43-38 halftime to lead to go up by 11, 61-50, at the midpoint of the second half. But the Profs (20-7) scored nine straight points, and pulled within 61-59 and eventually tied it, 63-63, after a bucket from Noel at 6:41. A three-pointer and three-point play from Marcellus Ross gave Rowan the lead for good, 71-65, at 2:52. From there, the Profs connected on 11 straight free throws from Chris McCarron, Drew Amos, Meares and Jamir Spivey to build up a double-digit lead and seal the win.

The last game of the night was a great one, as Whitworth finally found its shooting touch, rallying first to force overtime, then win at Cal Lutheran, 78-73, knocking off the 12th-ranked Kingsmen on their home floor. The Pirates (20-8) shot just 6-for-26 from the floor in the first half, but went on a 10-0 run midway through the second half to go up 50-49. The Kingsmen regrouped with a 7-1 run, going ahead 56-51 on a pair of free throws by Tommy Griffitts with 3:44 to play. Then the Bucs caught fire. Garrett Long converted a three-point play and Holtz scored to retie the game. Trailing 59-56 with less than 30 seconds to play, Sullivan Menard drilled a three-pointer to tie the game and Whitworth got the defensive stop to force overtime.

After Griffitts scored the first basket of overtime, the Pirates got a three from Jerry Twenge and Long hit a tough jumper in the paint. The Bucs never trailed again. Ben Nyquist drained a three with 1:37 to go to give Whitworth some separation (71-66). Holtz had a breakaway dunk with 25 seconds to play for a 75-69 lead. Whitworth continues this run without JoJo Anderson, who averages 17.7 points per game this season but hasn't played since Feb. 16.

Led by a career-high 26 points from Aaron Davis, Farmingdale State picked up its first win in the Division III NCAA Tournament since 2012, defeating Stevens at Hampden-Sydney's Kirby Field House, 80-66. FSC's most-recent win came in the first round of the 2012 edition of the tourney, when it won at Hartwick. Davis -- who scored 15 points at Kirby last March in a one-point loss to eventual national champ Christopher Newport -- continued his offensive surge in the Old Dominion with an 8-for-17 on the night to go with a game-high six assists. Nick Hurowitz added 16 points, nine rebounds and three steals. Farmingdale State improved to 27-2, matching the program record for wins in a season.

Eastern led by as many as 13 but needed some late defensive heroics to advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history, defeating The College of New Jersey 80-79. The Eagles got back-to-back 3-pointers from Eljay Morris and Kaeshawn Ward to go up 78-69 with four minutes left, but the Lions responded with an 8-0 run over the next three minutes. Zubair Lee found a cutting Arkese Claiborne for a strong finish at the rim build the lead back to three at 80-77 with 53 seconds to play. Claiborne finished with 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting. The Lions (20-9)- made two free throws to pull within point, and they earned a stop after a lengthy Eastern possession. With the Lions attacking the rim, Claiborne blocked the shot and grabbed the lead to preserve the advantage. After missing the front end of the one-and-one, the Eagles (21-7) needed another defensive stop. The Eagles rallied to contest the ball at the rim and a tough lay-up attempt rimmed out as time expired.

After sitting for nearly seven minutes of the second half with four fouls, Donyae Baylor-Carroll came up clutch when he buried the go-ahead step-back jumper from just inside the arc with a hand in his face to put Penn State-Harrisburg (25-4) ahead for good at 66-65 with 36 seconds to play against Hood in first-round action at Guilford. After the Blazers (19-7) missed a potential go-ahead jump shot the next time down the floor, Milien came up with a key offensive rebound with 16 ticks remaining and converted a pair of foul shots after being intentionally fouled. Curry had ice water in his veins from the charity stripe in crunch time, connecting on four free throws in the final 15 seconds to put it out of reach. 

It was an 0-3 night for the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, as Texas-Dallas defeated Trinity (Texas) on its home floor, Nebraska Wesleyan rolled past Centenary (La.) and St. Thomas (Texas) fell to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps at Cal Lutheran. Josh Angle scored 30 points to move into third place in CMS history with 1,607 points, helping the Stags get past St. Thomas 78-72. Angle made four of his three-pointers, along with another one from Matt Meredith, in a 15-0 first-half run that turned a 23-18 deficit into a 33-23 lead. Trinity shot just 9-for-2 from the foul line and 4-for-24 from three-point range to become the other Division III men's host institution to lose at home, as UT-Dallas extended its life as a Division III basketball program with a 67-63 win. UT-Dallas is headed to Division II next fall as part of the breakup of the American Southwest Conference.