The 2019 Air Force Reserve C-USA Men’s Basketball Championship presented by Baylor Scott & White Sports Performance Center at The Star in Frisco continued with quarterfinal play on Thursday evening. (1) Old Dominion escaped with a 57-56 win over (8) Louisiana Tech in the lid-lifter, while (5) UAB won for the second straight day, knocking off (4) UTSA, 85-76. In the later slate, (2) WKU downed (10) North Texas, 67-51 and (3) Southern Miss clipped (6) Marshall, 82-73.
Championship Central
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Quarterfinals Game 1
(1) Old Dominion 57, (8) Louisiana Tech 56
Ahmad Caver scored the game’s final eight points over the final 1:35, including a pair of three-pointers, to lead Old Dominion to a dramatic win over Louisiana Tech, 57-56, in the first quarterfinal game at the 2019 Air Force Reserve C-USA Men’s Basketball Championship presented by Baylor Scott & White Sports Performance Center at The Star in Frisco. The top-seeded Monarchs (24-8) advance to face UAB at 12:30 pm CT on Friday.
Caver was having a tough shooting night, hitting just 3-of-12 from the field and 1-of-5 from the field before his late flurry saved Old Dominion. His jumper in the paint cut the LA Tech lead to 56-51 with 1:35 remaining and then he nailed a three-pointer from in front of the Monarchs bench to cut it to 56-54.
On the other end of the floor, Bulldogs guard DaQuan Bracey was fouled at the 28 second mark. But Bracey missed both free throws. ODU rebounded and brought it up the floor looking to tie or win. Caver missed a jumper but got another chance when Kalu Ezikpe grabbed the rebound and dished it back to him. From the corner, Caver sank a three that put ODU ahead 57-56 with 3 seconds remaining.
LA Tech pushed the ball up court quickly and Bracey launched a three from about 25 feet, but it would not fall and top-seeded Old Dominion would survive and advance.
Caver finished with a game-high 17 points following his late-game heroics. He also dished out eight assists and grabbed five rebounds.
B.J. Stith posted his sixth double-double of the season for the Monarchs, but it would not come easy. The Bulldog defense forced him into one of his poorest shooting nights of the season, as Stith was 4-of-17 from the field and was held without a three-pointer.
Xavier Green added 10 points and five rebounds for Old Dominion.
Louisiana Tech (20-13) led from the final minute of the first half until the final three seconds of the game. The Bulldogs were able to maintain that advantage largely through holding ODU to 37.5 % shooting from the field and 22.2% from three-point range.
Five LA Tech players scored at least nine points in a balanced attack. DaQuan Bracey led the way with 12, while Ra’Shawn Langston also reached double figures with 12.
NOTES:
*Old Dominion advanced to the semifinals of the C-USA Championship for the second straight season and the third time in four years.
*For the second straight night, Louisiana Tech’s game ended in the same exact score of 57-56 (the Bulldogs defeated Florida Atlantic in the first round).
Quarterfinals Game 2
(5) UAB 85, (4) UTSA 76
No. 5 UAB found itself down by 11 in the first half, but stormed back to outscore No. 4 UTSA in the second frame to complete the upset bid 85-76. The Blazers advance to Friday’s C-USA Semifinals for a 12:30 p.m. meeting with No. 1 Old Dominion.
Zack Bryant paced the UAB offense as four reached double-figures. The sophomore punched in 24 points (8-17) with five assists, seven rebounds and a pair of steals. Jalen Perry nearly had a double-double on 18 points and eight boards. UAB’s defense was unrelenting, forcing 12 turnovers and seven steals, while taking the battle of the boards 42-30.
The league’s most prolific shooter in Jhivvan Jackson was one of two Roadrunners in double-figures. The sophomore inked a game-high 35 points (7-12), including five treys and a 12-of-13 showing from the free throw line. He also chipped in six rebounds, five assists and a pair of steals. Keaton Wallace notched 12 points with four rebounds and three assists.
UAB outscored UTSA 50-34 in the second half. After a slow offense start in the first frame, the Blazers sharpened up their attack and hit half of their 30 attempts, including 6-of-12 from beyond the arc. UTSA, who shot 60 percent from the field in the first, was slowed to a 33 percent clip and just 13 percent from 3-point range.
It didn’t take long for UTSA to heat up in the first half. The Roadrunners manufactured an 11-3 run five minutes in on 63 percent shooting with Jackson and Wallace combining for 5-of-8 field goals. A 3-point jumper from Makhtar Gueye brought the Blazers within five, but that’s as close as they could get. UTSA picked up the offensive rebound and Jackson pulled up for a trey that ignited an 8-1 run to stretch the deficit 19-7 at the 12:23 mark. UTSA remained confident in its shooting ability, still stroking at a 62 percent rate. UAB had only made 3-of-13 field goal shots at that point.
The drought was short-lived as UAB found a rhythm more than midway through the half. The Blazers constructed a 9-0 run with 5-of-6 shot attempts made, including a pair of layups from Bryant and a 3 from Lewis Sullivan that brought UAB within two with just over eight minutes to play.
Jackson caught fire with three-straight 3-pointers, one created by a UAB turnover, to extend the Roadrunner lead to nine. The Blazers relied on trips to the foul line to minimize the damage done by a scorching UTSA offense. Tyree Scott-Grayson sunk a pair with under a minute to go to close the deficit to five. A Giovanni Nicolao bucket would send the game into halftime with UTSA leading 42-35.
The Roadrunners were selfless and registered 13 helpers on 16 of its first-half shots. The team marked a 60 percent clip from the field and hit 7-of-16 threes attempted. The Blazers were held under to 11 field goals in 30 tries, but tallied 11 free throws at a 79 percent clip.
Bryant and Sullivan drained back-to-back threes to pull within one at the 16:55 mark. The teams traded baskets before a long-range shot from Perry handed UAB its first lead of the night with 14 minutes to go. The Blazers would hold a slight edge until a foul on Gueye allowed Jackson to knock down a pair of frees to tie it up at 57 with 11:06 on the board.
A fired up Blazer offense crafted a 9-2 run to rush ahead by seven and force UTSA into a timeout with just under nine to play. The Roadrunners went cold for more than two and a half minutes as UAB racked up six second-half threes. A Scott-Grayson block on Wallace from beyond the arc deflated UTSA even more, but Jackson was determined to keep his team in the game with a trey and a trio of foul shots to stay within five under the five-minute mark. A three-point play for Bryant padded the advantage for the Blazers 75-67 with under four minutes until the final buzzer.
NOTES:
*UTSA’s No. 4 seed is the program’s highest C-USA seeding in history and its highest since 2005.
*UAB has won 23 of 33 games when out-rebounding its opponent.
*Jhivvan Jackson’s 35 points rank seventh in the C-USA Championship single-game records. The 30+
point performance was the sophomore’s fourth of the season.
Quarterfinals Game 3
(2) WKU 71, (10) North Texas 57
Tavion Hollingsworth poured in 23 points and WKU led for all but the first 1:01 of the game en route to a 67-51 win over North Texas, in a quarterfinal contest at the 2019 Air Force Reserve C-USA Men’s Basketball Championship presented by Baylor Scott & White Sports Performance Center at The Star in Frisco. The No. 2 seed Hilltoppers (19-13) advance to face Southern Miss at 3 pm CT on Friday.
WKU seized control of the game late in the first half, holding the Mean Green scoreless for the final 3:59 to carry a 31-16 lead to the break. The Hilltoppers would extend that lead to 20 early in the second half and North Texas was never able to make a run to get closer than 12 points.
Hollingsworth led WKU in scoring for the 10
th time this season, hitting 9-of-15 from the field with a pair of three-pointers.
Josh Anderson was the only other Hilltopper to hit double-figures, finishing with 13 points and adding seven rebounds.
Charles Bassey contributed nine points and seven rebounds, while blocking four shots. That was his eighth game this season with at least four blocks. As a team, WKU’s eight blocked shots were one shy of season high.
But, blocking shots wasn’t the only way that the Toppers flexed their defensive muscles in this one. They held UNT to 5-of-27 (.186) shooting from three-point field goal range and 18-of-60 overall (.300).
Ryan Woolridge led the Mean Green (21-12) in scoring with 13 points, while Jordan Duffy scored 11 and grabbed seven boards. Zachary Simmons scored eight and pulled down 13 rebounds, giving him 29 boards in his two games at the C-USA Championship.
NOTES:
*WKU will play in the semifinals of the C-USA Championship for the third time in four seasons. The Hilltoppers will be seeking a second straight appearance in the title game.
*WKU held North Texas to 51 points after allowing just 59 points in the regular season meeting in Denton on Feb. 9. The Mean Green were averaging 70.2 points coming into the game.
*Friday will mark the third meeting this season between WKU and Southern Miss. The Hilltoppers have won the first two, by a 66-63 score on Jan. 24 in Hattiesburg and a 76-71 score in Bowling Green on Mar. 3.
Quarterfinals Game 4
(3) Southern Miss 82, (6) Marshall 73
One year later, Southern Miss and reigning league champion Marshall found themselves in a rematch of the 2018 C-USA Semifinals. This time, it was the third-seeded Golden Eagles who outlasted No. 6 Marshall 82-73 on Thursday night. Southern Miss will fight for a spot in the championship game at 3 p.m. Friday against No. 2 WKU in the semis.
Southern Miss had multiple hot hands working tonight. Nearly five Golden Eagles reached double-figures and all players combined for a team shooting average of 54 percent, 53 from 3-point range and 76 from the charity stripe. The squad forced 19 Marshall turnovers and out-rebounded 39-20.
Southern Miss' Tyree Griffin racked up 23 points, eight assists and four boards. Leonard Harper-Baker chipped in 16 points, nine rebounds, five assists, one block and one steal.
Marshall dished out 19 assists on 23 field goals with 17 treys made on 37 attempts. Jannson Williams etched 22 points with six 3-pointers in 39 minutes of action. Jon Elmore inked a near triple-double on 18 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds through a full 40 minutes.
The first half was a back and forth affair. Eight-straight points from Southern Miss with under three minutes to play handed the Golden Eagles the largest lead of the game at that point, 42-35. A final 3-point jumper from Taevion Kinsey with a minute and a half left closed the scoring action before the break.
Southern Miss defended the glass with authority, posting 18 rebounds to Marshall’s seven and also registered more efficient shooting clips, both from the floor and at the foul line in the first half. 21 of the Golden Eagles’ points came in the paint. Williams led all players with 17 points (6-11) with five 3-pointers on 10 attempts.
Burks and Elmore drained a pair of threes to bring Marshall within one at the 17:13 mark of the second half. Things got heated and the arena roared as the teams traded three-straight treys, capped by a long shot from Kinsey to knot it all at 58 with 11 minutes on the clock.
Marshall’s last lead came within the seventh minute as a pair of Southern Miss fouls allowed for Burks to sink one free shot. Harper-Baker would reach a layup to tie the game at 5:22 and a Ladavius Draine 3-pointer would give the Golden Eagles a lead they wouldn’t surrender.
NOTES:
*Marshall's 17 3-pointers rank second among all C-USA Championship single-game performances.
*Southern Miss will appear in a semifinal for the second year in a row. The last time the Golden Eagles made it to the third round before then was back in 2014.