WORCESTER -- The 14th-ranked and No. 1 seed WPI men's basketball team rolled to a 68-52 NWMAC Tournament semifinal victory over MIT on Thursday night at Harrington Auditorium, advancing to the NEWMAC title game for the fourth-straight season.  

Worcester's Engineers (23-2) will be looking for its first NEWMAC tournament title since 2014. The Crimson and Gray will square off against No. 3 Emerson on Saturday, Feb. 26 at 2pm at Harrington Auditorium.  

The Crimson and Gray were paced by a 24-point effort from Colin McNamara (Arlington, MA) who also added three rebounds and was a perfect 6-for-6 from the free throw line on the night. John Adams (Douglas, MA) added his 15th double-double of the season, and second against MIT, with a 14-point, 13 rebound effort, while also dishing out six assists. Aidan Callahan (Rowley, MA) added another 10 points and eight assists on the night and Logan O'Donnell (Fishkill, NY) contributed seven rebounds and a pair of blocks. 

A 13-0 run for WPI spanning a five-and-a-half minute period from 13:44 to 8:17 put the game out of reach early as the Central MA Engineers jumped out to an insurmountable 22-7 lead. Jump started by a John Lowther (Hingham, MA) layup, followed by back-to-back buckets from Andrew Lufkin (Auburn, NH) and three-straight layups from Adams (2) and McNamara, WPI ultimately took a 27-14 lead into the halftime break.  

The second-half featured a tighter ballgame that featured a 15-point effort from MIT's Julian Manyika (San Francisco, CA). The Cambridge-based Engineers cut the WPI lead to just seven using an 11-0 run to start the frame. Manyika hit three-straight treys, followed by a Dan Pilsbury (Millington, NJ) layup to make it 34-27, but that was as close as MIT would get as WPI easily regained a double-digit lead en route to the win.  

Manyika finished the game with 18 points, with every single bucket coming from deep. Alex Cho (San Diego, CA) added 14 points.  

WPI outrebounded MIT 37-26 and netted 20 points off of MIT's 18 turnovers. The squad also took advantage of its 12 offensive rebounds to record 19 second-chance points on the evening.  

WPI will take on Emerson on Saturday afternoon at 2pm at Harrington Auditorium in the NEWMAC Championships game. Emerson defeated No. 2 Babson 85-77 in overtime on Thursday night. MIT ends its season with a 13-12 record.