NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — After all the heartbreak of the last dozen years in March, it looked like another NCAA Tournament opportunity was slipping away midway through the second half Tuesday night for Wagner.
The undermanned, underseeded Seahawks had fought valiantly, but host Merrimack — fighting for its first NCAA bid in its last Northeast Conference contest in front of a raucous sellout crowd — had run off 13 straight points, and this was the time where underdogs go away.
But not this time.
The second-seeded Warriors missed their last nine three-point attempts and scored just four points in the final eight minutes, as the gutty, gritty, sixth-seeded Seahawks, with only seven healthy players, outlasted Merrimack, 54-47, at Lawler Arena to clinch their first NCAA Tournament bid since 2003 and only their second ever.
If you’re reading this, you likely know a lot of Wagner’s recent history, but here you go:
— In 2012, Dan Hurley (whatever happened to him?) went 15-3 in the regular season, but was upset at home by Robert Morris in the NEC semifinals.
— In 2013, this time under first-year head coach Bashir Mason, Wagner lost again at home in the NEC semifinals, this time to rival LIU Brooklyn.
— In 2016, Wagner won the regular season title, but was upset by upstart FDU in a heartbreaking final.
— In 2017, the Seahawks were beaten at home in the semifinals again, this time by Saint Francis University on an outrageous buzzer-beater by Keith Braxton that defied logic and seemingly physics.
— In 2018, Wagner won the regular season again, only to be beaten by LIU (again) in the NEC final at home.
— Finally, in 2022, Wagner was beaten by Bryant in an ugly NEC final that was delayed 30 minutes by a brawl in the stands.
Donald Copeland is only in his second year as head coach of Wagner, but he was there for a few of those as a graduate assistant and then assistant coach under Mason. He knows that opportunities are not something that come around every year.
“You never know,” Copeland said. “I was part of some tough losses as an assistant here. You can’t take their opportunities for granted because you never know when one will come again. There are no guarantees. So I was trying to bring everything into this game and this moment. These guys did a great job of approaching this like any other game. I’m glad, especially for those teams that couldn’t win this title and play in the NCAA Tournament. This one is for them, and they’re a part of this as well.”
And Wagner certainly took advantage of every opportunity in the 2024 NEC Tournament. After winning at Sacred Heart in the quarterfinals, and at top-seeded Central Connecticut in the semifinal, the Seahawks are the first team in NEC history to win three road games on their way to an NEC title.
Although it wasn’t totally wire-to-wire, Wagner led throughout, with tournament MVP (and Monmouth transfer) Tahron Allen leading the way early, hitting his first six shots. Wagner (16-15) was not a great shooting team this season and finished just 2-for-15 from behind the arc on Tuesday, but found a way to get buckets when it could, clinging to a 29-25 lead at the half.
Merrimack (21-12) took 29 shots in the first half and 21 were from behind the arc, making six. Wagner refused to let them inside (and to the free throw line, the Warriors attempted just three on the evening). But after Allen drained one of Wagner’s threes to give his team a 41-30 lead with 12:38 remaining, Merrimack suddenly caught fire and the crowd came right along with them. Jordan McCoy hit a pair of threes, and when center Bryan Etumnu stopped out and drilled one, it was a 13-0 Merrimack run and the Warriors grabbed a 43-41 lead with 7:38 left.
But Copeland used the under-8 media timeout to rally his troops one last time. Neither team scored for two minutes, but finally, Javier Ezquerra and Melvin Council (also on the all-tournament team) hit back-to-back hoops and Wagner had a lead it would not relinquish again.
“Just staying with each other was key there in that spot,” Allen said. “Throughout the whole year, everything’s that’s happened, we stayed with each other, stayed consistent. We weren’t going to let anything deter us.”
By the time Adam Clark broke Merrimack’s scoring drought, Wagner had a 49-45 with 2:05 left. From there, Wagner bled the clock and defended like a championship depended on it as Merrimack (which would not get another field goal) missed three after three (Ezquerra also had a big steal and rebound in that stretch). Eventually, there just wasn’t enough time left, and at long last, the basketball gods had shined on the guys from Staten Island.
“We just stayed with it,” Copeland said. “We knew they were going to be so good defensively, especially in their zone. They hit some threes and I was like, ‘This is the game they’re going to hit threes, I guess.’ But we never changed who we are. We stayed aggressive, both on defense and offense. We just knew we had to stay aggressive no matter what.”
It was a tough way for Merrimack to exit the NEC (Joe Gallo thanked the league and said it changed his life postgame), especially as NEC Player of the Year Jordan Derkack was clearly limited by an ankle injury that he suffered last week in the NEC quarterfinal and aggravated in Saturday’s semifinal win over Le Moyne, scoring just 4 points on 1-of-11 from the field. Wagner also held Clark to just eight points on 4-for-14 shooting. In all, Merrimack was 10-for-38 from three (and 17-for-57 overall).
“It was the type of score we expected,” Gallo said. “We made that run and took the lead, and give them credit for fighting back like they did. I think we settled a little bit too much for threes, but give their defense credit.”
Wagner’s bench played just 14 minutes, but Copeland has not and will not use having only seven players as an excuse. Allen scored 22 points with Council adding 12 and Keyontae Lewis chipping in eight points and 12 rebounds. The Seahawks turned the ball over 12 times, but that is well below Merrimack’s average.
And so, barring something really unforeseen, it’s off to Dayton and the First Four for Wagner next week, where the Seahawks will represent the NEC for the first time in 20 years. And somewhere in front of a television screen (and maybe a few in person), Bashir Mason, Dan Hurley, and all the players that came oh so close will be watching on and smiling.
“We only ever mentioned the team we were playing next,” Copeland said. “We never mentioned being on the road for all these games. We never mentioned having only seven players. These guys will tell you I’ve been saying all year, I don’t care how many players we have. I’m tired of hearing it. I’ve lost friendships because people tell me, ‘It’s OK, you only have seven players’. That’s just a losing mentality. And here we are.”
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