HOUSTON – In just its eight seasons as an NCAA Division I basketball program, the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders advanced to the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament with an 81-77 win over Northwestern State in the O'Reilly Auto Parts Southland Conference Tournament.
The Islanders (26-6), in just their first season in the Southland Conference, finished as the league's regular season champion and defeated the defending conference champion and winners of a first-round game over Iowa in last year's NCAA Tournament.
Chris Daniels, who was named the player of the year in the league, was also the tournament's most valuable player with a team-high 19 points on 7-of-8 shooting with two blocks. He scored seven of his points in the first nine minutes of the game.
Taurean Mitchell scored the game's first two points to give the Islanders a 2-0 lead which they would not relinquish. The Islanders opened the game with a 10-2 run capped off by a 3-pointer by Josh Washington with 15:45 to go. He would finish with 16 points, hitting 4-of-6 from behind the arc. An 11-5 run by the Demons brought them within two (20-18) with 9:31 to go thanks to a Trey Gilder layup and a foul conversion.
Gilder, who was named to the all-tournament team, scored a game-high 25 points and pulled down eight rebounds to pace the Demons, who had four players score in double figures.
The Islanders pulled away in the first half thanks to an 11-2 run late to lead 38-25 and would eventually lead by as many as 14, its largest of the game, in the first half.
Both teams would exchange buckets to open the second half until Northwestern State used a 10-2 run to pull within five (67-62) with 7:24 to go. During the Demon stretch, the Islanders went nearly two minutes without scoring a point.
Kennan Jones brought the Demons within one with 2:46 with a 3-point basket. Neither team would score again until Mitchell hit a 15-foot jumper with 37 seconds to go to give A&M-Corpus Christi a 76-73 advantage. Jermaine Spencer cut the lead once again with a layup with 25 seconds to go before Mitchell stripped Jones at mid-court with nine seconds to play.
Instead of running the clock out, Mitchell passed to Kevin Menifee, who converted a layup with five seconds to go. "I knew they were going to ball screen off the inbounds," Mitchell said. They had been doing that all game and sure enough they did it again that time. When he was dribbling, he didn't protect the ball and I took my chances. When I got it I was going to run the clock out, but Kevin asked for it, so I gave it to him."
After Menifee's layup, Rogers drained a 3-pointer five feet behind the line with two seconds to go to pull the Demons within one once again. Once the Islanders inbounded the ball, Josh Ervin was immediately fouled. After a game clock malfunction and two timeouts later, Ervin nailed two free throws to give the Islanders a three-point lead.
Mitchell deflected the inbounds pass which Menifee grabbed as the clock ran out. "You can never make up for experience. We have seven seniors on this team that have been the backbone the entire year. I am so proud of what these guys have done and where they are headed," head coach Ronnie Arrow said.
"I am very appreciative of the Southland Conference for letting us in the league. I hope we can represent it well and have a good showing in our next game. All I know is that we are going dancing."
