CHARLESTON, S.C. — On Saturday evening, Northeastern scored 85 points in front of a sellout crowd of 5,132 at TD Arena, one of the toughest places to play in all of the CAA. Five Huskies scored in double-digits, and Northeastern went 8-for-18 (44%) from three-point range, their highest mark of the season. The Huskies won the battle on the boards as well, 38-29.
All of that should have been enough for a signature win for Northeastern, in an arena where they got absolutely smoked, 99-63, the last time they played there two seasons ago. Right?
Not quite.
Saturday’s affair was much closer — an 87-85 loss — than that previous meeting in Charleston, and although there was a lot to like about the Huskies’ effort this time, the end result was the same. Those 85 points — the most Northeastern has scored in a regulation loss since 2003 — were all in vain.
Saturday’s contest got out to an incredibly fast-paced and free-flowing start — the first media timeout of the game, at the first whistle under 16 minutes, did not come until almost halfway through the first half. At that point, Charleston held a 20-19 advantage, with senior forward Ante Brzovic accounting for 10 of the Cougars’ points.
“I was fighting out there for air,” Brzovic said of the fast start. “Not for positioning or anything, I was fighting just to breathe. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that before, it was like nine minutes straight just going up and down.”
The Huskies were missing junior guard LA Pratt in Saturday’s game, who traveled with the team but did not dress. Junior guard Masai Troutman replaced him in the starting lineup, making his first start in five games, although Troutman would exit the game late in the second half with an injury of his own.
With all of the injuries, head coach Bill Coen essentially played a six-man rotation Saturday, with junior forward Youri Fritz the only bench player to get significant minutes. Fritz scored 11 of his 13 points on the night in the final nine minutes of the first half, and the Huskies trailed by a slim margin of 45-43 heading into the halftime break.
The only reason Northeastern wasn’t leading at the half was because of the play of Charleston sophomore guard Deywilk Tavarez, who went a perfect 5-for-5 from beyond the arc in the half. The Huskies had absolutely no answer for Tavarez, who was the MEAC Rookie of the Year last season at Delaware State.
“He just made some really tough shots,” Coen said of Tavarez. “He was 5-for-5 at halftime, I don’t even think he hit the rim. We tried to blitz him a little bit when he got in a ball screen, but I thought [Charleston] caught him in some open-court situations, inside-out threes when we tried to help on the big.”
In the second half, Northeastern stormed out of the locker room, opening the frame on a 15-6 run to open up a 58-51 lead. 11 of those 15 points came from junior guard Rashad King, who would finish the night with a team-leading 22 points. King has scored in double-digits in all six CAA games so far this season.
“He’s been there for us night in and night out,” Coen said of King. “He’s just been so consistent, so good, playing at a high level. You can’t take him off the floor, especially given our recent rash of injuries. He’s the adult in the room. … Everybody borrows their confidence from him, and he’s willing to take that leadership role.”
King, though, may have ultimately been the one that stopped the run in its tracks. To cap the run, King was fouled on a made three-pointer, but he missed the free throw that would have made it a four-point play. Then on the other end, King fouled graduate student guard Derrin Boyd as he was shooting a three, and Boyd hit all three free throws — a four-point swing.
Even after that sequence, Northeastern still held the lead — by as much as six with eight-and-a-half minutes to go. However, as in the first half, the Cougars would look to Tavarez to get going from distance, and he did, hitting two threes as part of an 11-0 run that gave Charleston a lead they would hold for the rest of the game.
“My teammates, CJ [Fulton], Ante, finding me whenever I’m open, or whatever it is, they make the right play,” said Tavarez. “I wouldn’t be able to have these types of performances without them.”
The Huskies were down 86-80 with 50 seconds to go in the game when Fritz missed a layup and King fouled Brzovic after he got the defensive rebound, sending the big man to the line for two free throws. That sequence felt like the dagger, until Brzovic missed both free throws and junior guard Harold Woods hit a quick shot to put Northeastern within four.
That would be the first of three blown opportunities for the Cougars to seal the victory in the closing seconds — Brzovic went to the line again on the next possession and again missed both free throws, and Tavarez blew a layup that would have put them up six with 17 seconds left. And after that Tavarez miss, sophomore guard JB Frankel hit a three to make it a one-point game.
On the next sequence, the Huskies fouled senior guard CJ Fulton, who missed the first free throw but made the second, giving Northeastern seven seconds to tie the game or take the lead.
The Huskies went the length of the floor and King took it to the basket but had it deflected out of bounds, giving Northeastern a baseline inbounds in their frontcourt with 1.2 seconds remaining. Charleston did an excellent job, though, on defense, forcing Frankel to throw the ball to King just to avoid a five-second call, and King’s off-balance three at the buzzer to win it came up well short.
Charleston head coach Chris Mack, in his first season at the helm for the Cougars after previous stints with Xavier and Louisville, was happy with how his team defended in the final seconds.
“[Northeastern] didn’t have an opening,” said Mack of the final play. “They didn’t get a back screen under the basket for a layup, they didn’t get any slips, they didn’t get an open jump shot. [King] had a sort of side-step, off-balance three. If it goes in, you’re probably sick, but you can’t play better defense than we did down the stretch.”
Still, both Mack and Brzovic had praise for Northeastern as a whole.
“Northeastern’s a really good team,” said Mack. “They play hard. What we did defensively didn’t work. They exposed us. They got our bigs stretched out on the floor, their guys made some shots … and so we had to make some adjustments as the game went on.”
“We need to, me especially, need to make sure we knock those free throws down at the end,” said Brzovic. “[We] had an opportunity to have a less stressful finish. But [Northeastern’s] a good team. They made some runs in the second half, they fight hard, so we’re gonna take the win and get prepared for next week.”
Mack also added praise for King, who currently leads the Huskies with 17.5 points per game.
“[King] is a terrific one-on-one player,” said Mack. “Some guys are ‘he’s a jump shooter’ or ‘he puts his head down and drives’ — [King] can do a little bit of both. We knew he was a challenge. … He’s an all-conference type guard, we knew that going in, and he didn’t do anything to disprove it tonight.”
While the loss dropped the Huskies to 2-4 in conference play, Coen said the effort was a good sign as the team prepares for the ultimate goal of winning the CAA Tournament.
“I told the guys in the locker room, it gave a glimpse into our potential,” said Coen. “And if we can get to full strength and we can compete with that type of toughness and resilience, we’re going to be a tough out.”
The Huskies return home to Matthews Arena to face Drexel on Thursday night. Jacob Phillips, Jordan Walsh, and Sam Riggs will have the call for WRBB at 7 p.m.