tournament
Monmouth men going back to NCAA
tournament
PHOTOS BY JEFF GRANIT staff Monmouth University’s Brian Boxler hugs teammate Russ Anderson after the Hawks beat Central Connecticut State on March 10 to win the NEC championship on their home floor in West Long Branch.
BY DOMINICK RINELLI JR.
Correspondent
For the third time in school history, the Monmouth University men’s basketball team has earned a trip to the Big Dance.
With a dominating performance in front of a frenzied home crowd at Boylan Gymnasium on March 10, the Hawks beat Central Connecticut State, 67-55, to win the NEC Championship, and earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
Monmouth coach Dave Calloway and his son, David, cut down the net at Boylan Gymnasium after the Hawks earned their third trip to the NCAA tournament.
Led by the surprising play of sophomore guard Tyler Azzarelli, who posted a career best 19 points, the Hawks defeated the Blue Devils in convincing fashion. Azzarelli, who averaged just 3.4 points per game entering the NEC final, certainly saved his best effort for the big spot.
"I struggled scoring this year," he admitted. "But our offense is designed to get the layups and I got them today. The rest of the guys were really screening well and I just tried to run off them."
Junior Blake Hamilton was named the Northeast Conference Tournament MVP as he averaged 14.3 points and 5.7 rebounds per game in the NEC Tournament. But following the win over Central Connecticut State, he shared the credit with his teammates.
"We took the season as a team and I don’t have to be the man," he said. "We have plenty of men on this team and tonight Tyler Azzarelli was the man."
Monmouth’s Chris Kenny, a CBA grad, drives past Central Connecticut’s Javier Mojica during the Hawks’ 67-55 win on March 10 in West Long Branch.
After jumping out to an early 12-4 lead, Monmouth kept the pressure on Central Connecticut, entering the half with a 26-20 advantage. At halftime Azzarelli led the Hawks in scoring with 12 points and shot 5-of-5 from the field. Senior Jason Krayl and junior Blake Hamilton followed Azzarelli in the scoring column with each adding four points before the half.
After intermission, the Hawks went out to a 31-20 lead. The Hawks were able to hold off a late rally by the Blue Devils who converted their three-pointers down the stretch to cut the deficit down to seven points with 39 seconds remaining, but the Hawks countered by making their free throws down the stretch. As time expired the celebration began at Boylan Gym as students rushed the court.
After the win, head coach Dave Calloway admitted that playing at home helped the Hawks’ cause.
"We have the best fans in the Northeast Conference and that’s why we were able to go undefeated at home," he said.
For their effort, the Hawks (21-11), who last won the NEC in 2001, and before that in 1996, were given the 15th seed in the 16-team Atlanta regional bracket, and a first-round meeting with second-seeded Mississippi State (25-3), who was upset by Vanderbilt in the first round of the SEC Tournament, but remains one of the top five teams in the nation in recent polls.
It’s not Duke, who beat up on the Hawks en route to a 95-52 win in Monmouth’s 2001 first-round game, but it remains a tough task for a Hawks team that has not faced anyone the likes of the Bulldogs, and in particular their big man, Lawrence Roberts, the 6-foot-9, 235-pound SEC Associated Press Player of the Year.
Monmouth will be trying to win its first NCAA tournament game as they lost to Duke in 2001 and Marquette back in 1996. Calloway has been around for both of the games (as an assistant in 1996 he saw the team fall to Marquette, 68-44).