Maryville Too Much for Belhaven in Championship Final; Best Season Win Percentage Since 2009-10
MARYVILLE – Chase Morgan was the Most Valuable Player of the 2024 Collegiate Conference of the South Men's Basketball Tournament.
But Daryl Rice was the heart and soul of this championship.
The lone senior on this year's team, Rice saved his absolute best for the absolute last game he played on the Cooper Athletic Center floor. He scored a career-high 19 points and handed out a career-high eight assists to lead Maryville to a dominating 97-75 victory over Belhaven here Saturday afternoon in front of a raucous Scots crowd.
The fans were on fire because Rice couldn't miss – at least for his first eight shot attempts from the field. Shot No. 9 finally rattled in and out and Rice settled for 8-of-10 from the floor and 3-of-4 at the line.
Good enough to land Rice a spot on the All-Tournament Team and good enough to land his team a second consecutive CCS tourney title.
Rice 'Wanted' This Title
"I told the guys, been telling them all week, we've got to get it," Rice said. "No matter how we get it done, I wanted this championship. We had to get it. I'm so glad to go out with a career-high in points and a career-high in assists. It feels great. Felt great on the court. I didn't want to lose, and I know the guys didn't want to lose.
"The crowd came out with great energy – best crowd since I've been here. They made the game different today. They made an enormous difference, and I was so happy to play in front of them."
Maryville for the second game in a row set a CCS tournament record for points, scoring 97 to eclipse the 92 the Scots scored Friday night. They put 46 on the board in the first half and led 46-37 at intermission. Morgan already had 14 and Rice had 12 on 6-of-6 shooting.
In the second half, Belhaven closed within six points on a couple of occasions when Jermario Hersey scored five straight points for the Blazers. That three-point-play and turnaround jumper made it first a 58-52 and then 60-54 ball game as the clock ticked toward 14 minutes.
But Morgan made a pair of free throws and then produced a steal that led to Jaylon Green's driving layup. Keith Williams followed with a layup and R.J. Simmons then scored five in a row, capped by a rainbow 3-pointer. Maryville had a 13-2 run, and the score was 73-56 with 9:51 showing.
The lead never shrunk below 14 the rest of the happy way to triple zeroes.
"Dominant with a capital Power M!" Maryville head coach Raul Placeres said. "Belhaven is a fantastic basketball team, an 18-win team. They are the only ones who beat us this year in the conference, and they have some really talented players.
"But the two games we put together this weekend – just dominating performances."
Most Valuable Morgan
Morgan once again was spectacular, combining to score 50 points over consecutive games for the first time in his career. The tournament MVP averaged 25 points and six rebounds for the weekend, finishing 16-of-27 from the floor and a salty 15-of-16 from the line.
The Scots as a team were 13-of-15 from the line Saturday for their best percentage (86.7) in a game this season. They made 38 of their 44 free throw attempts for the tournament for an 86.4-percent clip.
In addition to Rice and his career performance, Simmons rounded out the Maryville trio on the All-Tournament Team. The sophomore forward scored 19 and grabbed seven boards, giving him a combined 31 points and 21 rebounds for the weekend.
"Daryl willed us in the first half – he was unbelievable," Placeres said. "A career day, and just his leadership and his toughness. The only senior and to lead this group and to graduate from here with four regular-season championships and three conference tournament titles. What an experience for him.
"R.J. again doing R.J. things with 19 and seven. And the MVP, Chase – he's unbelievable. The more he works, the better he's going to be."
Reed Kemp made it to 70 3-pointers and 493 points for the season as he scored 14 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Javi Rosell and Jaylon Green each contributed 10-plus minutes at the guard spots, Keith Williams was on the floor for nine minutes and was a factor, as was Darius Martin. The junior forward had two blocks, two rebounds and an assist in his 3½ minutes of play late in the first half.
"There's no question Darius affected the game there before halftime," Placeres said. "He altered a few shots and we started to rebound the ball better, which carried over into the second half when we outrebounded them by 11."
Saturday's Crowd Stood Out
Placeres also could not get over how great the crowd was and how much of an impact it had on the game.
"Oh! More than a thousand people in our building is like selling out," Placeres said. "Jeff McCord and I played in some big moments back in the day, and it felt like that today. The yelling and the engagement and the student body loving one another was great energy.
"It's a pretty darn good home-court advantage we have here."
The Scots were a perfect 10-0 at home this season, improving the overall home winning streak to 15. That's the best since the 2016-17 and 2017-18 Scots won 21 straight inside the Coop.
Overall, Maryville achieved 22 victories against just five losses for an .815 winning percentage. That's the most wins since 2017-18 (22-7) and the best winning percentage since 2009-10 (23-5, .821).
This year's edition comes with a 14-game winning streak the Scots will carry either into the NCAA tournament if they are selected for an at-large bid, or into next season. The winning streak matches the one from two years ago en route to a 20-5 finish.
"We can't control what happens on the NCAA committee calls Sunday and Monday," Placeres said. "The only thing we could control was these 40 minutes here. And gosh, we were really good."
