By Connor Wilson (@Conman_815)
On what was a warm day, reaching the mid-50s in some spots of Connecticut, March officially felt like it had arrived.
With March comes madness, and with madness comes heartbreak. In a one-bid league like the NEC, once conference tournament season comes around, it becomes a mindset of survive, or have your season come to an abrupt conclusion.
As the NEC Tournament opened Wednesday, both No. 2 seed Central Connecticut and No. 7 seed Wagner had the same goal: Survive. The Blue Devils had lost on their home floor in the playoffs in back-to-back years, while Wagner was looking to regain the feeling of its 2024 team that won the NEC championship.
In front of a packed crowd in New Britain, it was the visiting Seahawks who came out on top, knocking off the higher-seeded Blue Devils, 70-60, behind a ferocious second-half attack and three scorers with 16 or more points. For CCSU, it meant two straight games of shocking losses at home in the postseason after dropping last year’s memorable NEC title game to Saint Francis.
“A lot of credit to Wagner, those guys play hard,” head coach Patrick Sellers said. “They had won four straight coming into the game and they’ve been playing hot at the right time.”
The opening minutes had eerily similar vibes to that infamous day last March, as the two squads combined to make two of their first 17 shots from the floor. The score was tied at two for a while before Darin Smith, Jr. got to the line on an impressive pump fake that got his defender to bite. The NEC Player of the Year knocked down two free throws, the start of an 18-point first half explosion. He would finish the night with 29 points.
“I was just playing Central Connecticut basketball,” Smith said. “Play for my team, play together, just try to read the game and play as hard as I can.”
By the under-12 media timeout, Central had built an 18-13 lead, headlined by an impressive offensive rebound from Daniel James that set up a Melo Sanchez triple. From there, Wagner responded with a 9-1 run to take a three-point lead capped off by a three from all-NEC second-teamer Nick Jones.
The Blue Devils responded right away and tied it up after Jay Rodgers crossed up Jones and stuck a deep triple near the end of the shot clock. From there, the CCSU offense would really take off, as Roddy Jones banged one of his signature catch-and-shoot treys and Smith went on a personal 8-0 run.
“We tried a little bit of everything to get Smitty the ball,” Sellers said.
Smith’s surge was significant percentage-wise, because he started the half shooting 1-for-9 from the floor before closing 4-for-5 with three triples, all of which coming in the final four minutes of the half. The Seahawks built some momentum into the break, as Jones knocked down a pair at the line with 1.1 seconds remaining to make the score 35-31 at the intermission.
Both sides started the second half cold again, but Wagner was able to build a three-point lead, thanks to doubling up Central, 14-7, in the first 10 minutes. Another Nick Jones three broke a 42-all tie, but a few trips later, Smith hit his first second-half field goal with an assertive drive to the cup to make it 45-44. By the under-8 timeout, the Seahawks had a 50-46 lead.
From here, John Awoke awoke (pun certainly intended). The Wagner guard had a sequence in which he somehow managed to bank in a baseline jumper, then immediately after, got a friendly bounce to go his way on a three to make it 57-50 and trigger a Sellers timeout.
“My teammates did a great job finding me,” Awoke said. “I just did the easy part in knocking down the shot, but yeah, that came in a crucial time.”
The lead would never get less than seven again, peaking at 13 in the final minute thanks to two more free throws from Jones. At the final buzzer, Wagner completed the 70-60 upset over CCSU to advance to the semifinals, the second time in three years the Seahawks won a postseason game in New Britain.
“You just have to believe,” interim head coach Dwan McMillan said. “What we’ve shown the last half of the season, the connectivity has been there at a high frequency in the last month.”
Central was without its floor general in Rodgers for most of the second half after suffering a lower body injury, searching for answers and not getting them on the offensive end.
“Midway through the first half, he came off a screen and stopped really hard,” Sellers said. “He said it was his hip and his knee, and he’s had surgery on both, so I was hesitant to put him back out there.”
The loss certainly brings heartbreak, but it also puts a new plan into immediate action for Sellers and the staff with the state of college basketball.
“I told the guys, we’ll take a couple days off and then we’ll get together and have our exit meetings,” he said. “There, we’ll figure out who’s going into the portal, who’s leaving and who’s staying. We’ll have an idea of what we need recruiting-wise and start the process all over.”
As for Wagner, it is set to travel to top-seeded LIU on Saturday with a spot in the NEC championship on the line. The task may be tall, but the Seahawks have been facing adversity all year.
“It’s been an abnormal year, starting out as an assistant," McMillan said. “I moved into a teaching role, so I had to keep the energy going because the guys feed off that.”
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