The Northeastern men’s basketball team will not be advancing to the March Madness of the NCAA Tournament because it couldn’t play a whole game. Poor first half performances eventually caught up to the Huskies as they fell in the Colonial Athletic Association final to James Madison University on Monday.
The beginning of last week’s semifinal game against George Mason University was the definition of sloppy. Down 31-7 with about five minutes left in the first half, it seemed the only thing left for the Huskies was to try to make the game respectable. They were turning the ball over and unable to make their shots, even their free throws. George Mason, which had clearly come to play early on, had them on the ropes. Somehow, the Huskies were able to pull it together to go on a 21-0 run to pull within three points of GMU barely into the second half.
At the beginning of the second half, the Huskies sank three three-pointers before George Mason even scored. The Huskies offense showed up and reminded everyone why they were the No. 1 seed. Their offense was completely different because the Huskies were sinking three-point shots with ease. They were also getting fouls called, and showed off their free throw shooting. It was the Husky team we got used to seeing this season.
While George Mason kept building leads, the Huskies were resilient. They kept pulling back, and while they didn’t hold the lead often, they held it when the buzzer rang, mostly because of a strong offense. This provided the Huskies with momentum going into the finals. They had pulled off the largest comeback in Northeastern history, and played a very strong second half that should have translated well to the next time they took the court.
Unfortunately, the Huskies played a very similar first half in the finals. Their shots from beyond the arc in the first half were not on target. They couldn’t get any rebounds, and couldn’t get open in the paint. Their layup attempts were frequently blocked. On top of that, the defense was unable to keep up in transition, and let up easy drives to James Madison.
The Huskies were able to come back and close the gap against George Mason, which is the only reason anyone had hope at half time. Unfortunately, they came back against George Mason by sinking a lot of three-pointers and making foul shots – and that was missing Monday night in the finals.
Against James Madison, they did not have a really good run or three-point success to bring them back into the game. The Huskies showed a flash of getting in control of the game with about nine minutes left when they pulled within nine points of James Madison. Joel Smith then left the game because of a suspect foul in which he barely touched the shooter after the ball left his hand – needless to say Husky fans weren’t happy with the call across the board.
Still, the Huskies had one of their worst offensive performances of the season in their biggest game. Turnovers and bad shooting sunk the season. The defense made some good plays and forced a lot of turnovers, but it also let JMU have big lanes to the basket too often. Still, when an offense averages close to 70 points a game and can barely score 50 in the conference finals, it’s pretty clear what went wrong.
The Huskies did not play in the tournament like they did the rest of the season when they won the first seed. No one really knows why the Huskies came out sluggish, but atypical play is just a part of sports. Bad luck in the playoffs combined with a bad game spelled defeat for Northeastern. However, the team showed resolve even at the end of the game, which is a testament to its character. One bad game should not define a team’s season, but it probably will – unfairly so. It’s unfortunate that after the best season in recent years, the strongest memory for some Husky fans will be the last game at the end of the season instead of the success they had during the regular season. Even without the tournament win, there’s a lot to be proud of here. Bring on the NIT.
– Chris Judd can be reached at [email protected]
