#1 Robert Morris 59, #8 St. Francis Brooklyn 58
Click Here For Boxscore
Click Here for Highlights
Click Here For RMU Press Conference
Click Here For SFBK Press Conference 

Moon Township, PA --  AJ Bramah scored 22 points with eight rebounds and top-seeded Robert Morris blunted St. Francis Brooklyn's upset bid with a 59-58 win on Wednesday night in a Northeast Conference Tournament quarterfinal.
 
After Chauncey Hawkins' 3-pointer brought the Terriers within 59-58 with 17 second left, St. Francis fouled Jon Williams who missed the front end of a one-and-one. But Larry Moreno missed a jumper for the Terriers to end it.

"An exciting finish," said RMU head coach Andrew Toole. "I'm proud of our guys for coming up with the stops that we needed. The second half offensively didn't flow as well as we would of liked, but we were able to figure it out.”

Yannis Mendey made two foul shots with 79 seconds left to give Robert Morris a 58-51 lead.
 
Helping the Terriers claw back into it, Hawkins then made four free throws in a 15-second span before sinking his 3. He led the Terriers with 23 points. Deniz Celen and Unique McLean each scored 10 apiece for the Terriers.
 
Josh Williams scored 11 for the Colonials. Robert Morris (18-14) advanced to play fourth-seeded Long Island on Saturday.
 
Trailing, 49-45, after a hook shot from SFBK’s Deniz Celen, RMU used a 13-2 run to grab a 58-51 advantage with 1:19 remaining.  Williams opened the surge with a three-pointer, the first of the second half for the Colonials, while Bramah contributed six points, including a dunk with 2:04 to go.

“That's what conference tournament basketball is. It can be crazy, it can be wild but the idea and the objective is to live another day, said Toole. “I was proud of the way guys continued to focus on the things that were important, even as it got a little shaky at the end.”

Bramah shot 9-for-13 from the field and was a perfect 4-for-4 at the free-throw line. He has now scored in double figures in 26 of his last 27 games.

"You know every time we play them its a war," said SFBK head coach Glenn Braica. "I was really proud of them. One bounce of the ball you know we're all hooting and hollering. If the ball bounces a little bit to the right or the left, we're all jumping around celebrating. Unfortunately that didn't happen. We congratulate Robert Morris. I thought they played a good game. They do a great job and we wish them the best of luck in the playoffs."


#2 Saint Francis U 87, #7 Bryant 61
Click Here For Boxscore
Click Here for Highlights
Click Here For SFU Press Conference
Click Here For BRY Press Conference

Loretto, PA -- Saint Francis U matched its largest margin of victory in an NEC Tournament game, downing Bryant, 87-61.

Seniors Keith Braxton (24) and Randall Gaskins (20) combined for 44 points to pace the Red Flash.

SFU, which moved to 4-0 against Bryant in NEC postseason battles, never trailed and led wire-to-wire after Gaskins’ made jumper to open the game.
 
The senior-ladened Flash set the tone from the opening tip.

Gaskins knocked down his first two shots, a baseline jumper and a corner three, to give Saint Francis a 5-0 lead, and they led 15-4 at the first media timeout after a three-pointer from sophomore Myles Thompson.

“The focus and intensity that they had to start was, what I expected from this group,” said Saint Francis U head coach Rob Krimmel. “We have an experienced team that's been through so many playoff games and so many different scenarios. It was a lot of fun to stand on the sidelines those first couple minutes and not have to do a heck of a whole lot. These guys carried the load.”

The SFU lead stretched to 22-4 on a layup by Braxton before Bryant was able to weather the storm and battle back to make it 45-31 at the half.

The Bulldogs got as close as 11 with 15 minutes to go in the game.

Bryant made one final push, cutting it to 65-52 with 7:51 remaining, but the Red Flash answered with 14 of the next 16 points to salt away the win.

Saint Francis shot 32-56 (57.1%) from the field, its best percentage against a Division I opponent all season. Bryant was held to 23-69 (33.3%).

Bryant’s Adam Grant scored 13 points on 5-of-16 shooting with two three-pointers, becoming the first player in the program’s Division I history to make 100 threes in a season.

"They have two really good players and their role players stepped up and made shots," said Bryant head coach Jared Grasso. "They played very well today. We didn’t have one of our better performances, and we are not going to come up here and beat as good of a team as this playing the way that we did. So hats off to those guys, they out played us today."


#3 Sacred Heart 61, #6 Mount St. Mary's 59
Click Here For Boxscore
Click Here For Highlights
Click Here For Mount St. Mary's Press Conference
Click Here For Sacred Heart Press Conference (Anosike & Spellman)
Click Here For Sacred Heart Press Conference (Latina)
 
Fairfield, CT -- Jare'l Spellman collected a missed shot and sank a hook shot with 1.6 seconds remaining to propel the Sacred Heart University men's basketball team to a 61-59 Northeast Conference Tournament quarterfinal win over Mount St. Mary's.

The victory was the 20th of the season for the Pioneers (20-12), who posted their first NEC Tournament win since the 2009 campaign.improves the Pioneers to 20-12 on the season. The Mount finished the season with an 11-21 mark.

E.J. Anosike recorded his 18th double-double of the season, with a 16-point, 15-rebound double-double. He was one of four Pioneers to reach double-digits, with a 15-point effort from Koreem Ozier. Aaron Clarke scored 13 and Kinnon Larose added 10. Spellman's game-winning basket were his only points of the game, but he had 11 boards in the win.

SHU advances to face the second-seed, Saint Francis U, in the NEC Semifinal on Saturday. The game, in Loretto, Pa, will tip-off at noon.

“What I can say about the game is that we didn’t play our best," said SHU head coach Anthony Latina. "Mount St. Mary’s deserves a lot of credit for that. They played outstanding and made a lot of plays. I’m extremely proud in the way we just kept on grinding and grinding. We didn’t do great tonight but we have a group of guys that just refuse to lose and that’s a special thing."

The Pioneers took their first lead of the second half when Aaron Clarke scored a driving layup with 2:12 remaining to put the Pioneers in front, 58-57.

Clarke made a free throw 45 seconds later for a two-point lead, but the Mount's Damian Chong Qui responded with a pair of free throws of his own with 19 ticks left.

With the clock winding down, Spellman collected a miss from Clarke and layed the ball in with 1.6 seconds remaining for the game-winning bucket.

“I just put it up there and hoped it went in," said Spellman. "It was a serene experience and I am just glad we got the win.”

The Pioneers dominated the boards all night, outrebounding the Mount, 47-23, including 24 offensive boards. Anosike finished with 10 offensive boards and Spellman pulled down six as SHU finished with a 19-0 edge in second chance points.

Chong Qui led all scorers with an 18-point effort, and was joined in double figures by Nana Opoku, who tallied 11. Chong Qui also dished for a game-high seven assists.

"E.J. Anosike presents some challenges on the glass, especially with second chance opportunities and I thought that was the name of the game," said Mount head coach Dan Engelstad. "On the last play of the game we got the stop, played really hard just couldn’t get to the ball when we needed to and unfortunately that was the difference in the game. We defended, and we played hard just couldn’t come up with enough fifty-fifties and rebounds and that was the difference in the game.”


#4 LIU 73, #5 Fairleigh Dickinson 72
Click Here For Boxscore
Click Here for Highlights
Click Here For LIU & FDU Press Conferences

Brooklyn, NY --  The #4 seeded LIU men's basketball team is going to the Northeast Conference semifinals, and it all came down to the final 3.6 seconds of play, in one of the most dramatic games of the season for the Sharks.

LIU led by as many as 19 points in the second half, but the game was determined in the final seconds, as #5 seed Fairleigh Dickinson took the lead with 22 seconds left. The Sharks had the last word, when senior Julian Batts made the game-winning layup with 0.8 seconds on the clock. FDU's late shot fell short, and LIU advanced to the NEC semis for the third straight season. The Sharks will face top-seeded Robert Morris on Saturday at 2 pm.

The game was close early on, with FDU jumping out to a 13-9 lead, but the Sharks immediately coming back to tie it up, 16-16.

In the final five minutes of the half, however, LIU got hot. Senior Raiquan Clark sparked the run with a three pointer, and over the next three minutes, the Sharks outscored FDU 16-2. LIU didn't miss a basket, going 6-for-6 from the field, and taking a 44-29 lead into the halftime break.
 
In the second half, the Sharks would use a 7-0 run, including a three from Jermaine Jackson Jr. and baskets from Clark and Ty Flowers to take their widest lead of the game, 55-36 with 13:26 to play.
 
But the Knights would fight back, using a 9-0 run to close the lead to 10 points, but LIU held on to a comfortable 69-55 lead with five minutes to go.

FDU then turned up the heat and got hot all at the same time. The Knights would go on to score seven unanswered points to bring it to 69-62 with 3:19 to play. Then, in the final two minutes, FDU went on a 10-0 run, culminating with an Elyjah Williams conventional three-point play with 22 seconds to go to give his team a 72-71 edge, the Knights' first lead since midway through the first half.
 
After both teams called a timeout. LIU inbounded the ball with 3.9 seconds to play, and senior Julian Batts drove to the basket, making the layup that would put the Sharks on top, 73-72, with 0.8 seconds on the clock. The Knights would attempt a final Hail Mary, but it didn't fall, as LIU survived.

"I was a little apprehensive with the ball on that side of the floor knowing he’d have to drive right but he did a great job," said LIU head coach Derek Kellogg on the Batts game-winner. "I’ve seen him do it four or five different occasions. That Wagner game two years ago he made that driving layup. He made a few more throughout his career. He made a big three against FDU the other night to seal the game so listen, when you’re trying to win a tournament or championship, you have to have some plays like that. There will probably be two or three more before the actual NEC champion is crowned so hopefully we’re on the right side of that."

LIU had four players score in double digits, led by Flowers' 21 points. The junior also had nine rebounds and two blocks to lead the Sharks. Clark had 19 points and five rebounds for LIU, along with six rebounds. Batts finished with 13 points, while Jackson had 10 points and a team-high six assists.

"It’s a great experience," said Clark. "The main goal is to get back to the NEC Championship. That’s what we have been talking about ever since we lost in the NCAA Tournament two years ago. We’re just trying to get back. It’s been a great experience. We’re just trying to keep pushing and get back there."

LIU won despite shooting 29.2 percent from three and just 46.2 percent from the free throw line.

Williams led FDU with 21 points, as one of four Knights to score in double digits.

"I couldn’t be prouder of my team," said FDU head coach Greg Herenda. "They never quit. Ever. The game was just .8 seconds too long and the credit goes to LIU. It was a great basketball game. Those are two teams that won the championship the last two years and both teams played like it."