Six days after the Brockport men’s basketball team won their first SUNYAC title since 2009, the men saw their 20 point second half lead evaporate in an 83-80 triple overtime loss to Morrisville State in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
The Golden Eagles finished in first place during the regular season with a 22-3 record, including a team-record tying 15 consecutive wins, before rattling off victories against Oswego and Plattsburgh in the conference tournament to secure the auto-bid to the NCAAs.
Brockport built an 18-point halftime lead against Morrisville led by Matt Lee’s three treys and Brandon Caruthers eight points.
“I told my assistant coach at halftime that I wasn’t thinking of getting back into the game; I was afraid of getting embarrassed because that was what was happening,” said Mustangs fifth year head coach Joseph Smith.
But get back in the game they did – little by little.
Brockport extended the lead to 20 points on a fast break lay-up by Clifton Lyerly to open the second half, but Morrisville held the Golden Eagles to just one field goal for the next eight minutes as they closed the deficit to ten points.
Trailing by just eight points with 2:36 remaining in regulation, the Mustangs held Brockport off the scoreboard the rest of the way before tying the game with 1:16 left.
In the first overtime, the Golden Eagles held a three-point lead on a three-pointer by Lee, but Morrisville countered with one of their own.
The Mustangs built a three-point lead in the second overtime, but Brockport battled back on consecutive jumpers by Lyerly. After Morrisville went up by one with 1:34 left, Caruthers made one of two free throws to tie the game and push it to a third extra session.
With the Mustangs up by three, Bobby Bell hit a trey with 1:09 left, but Morrisville hit with 48 seconds left and held Brockport scoreless for three possessions before sealing it with a free throw with 3.6 remaining.
“We ran out of steam,” said Brockport head coach Greg Dunne, whose team lost SUNYAC Player of the Year John Ivey to a season-ending ACL tear during the next-to-last weekend of the regular season. “The crowd was so unbelievable and we were so juiced early in the game; the second half rolled around and you could tell with shots coming up short and guys were sprinting through things or trying to get to the basket – all things that made us successful in the first half.
It’s one of those games you wish you could have back, but you can’t have it back. When you lose a game like that, it’s really hard to think about the great season you had, but when we look back at this senior class, I’ve been at Brockport for 15 years and we’ve had some really good teams, but no team has ever brought the campus community together like this team has.”
Lyerly led Brockport with 23 points, Lee had a double-double with 12 points and ten rebounds, center Patrick Coyle also had a double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds and Caruthers finished with 13 points with a team-high five assists.
Ivey was a First Team All-SUNYAC selection in addition to being named Player of the Year, Caruthers was named to the Second Team and Dunne was named Coach of the Year. Caruthers and freshman guard Aaron White were both named to the SUNYAC All-Tournament Team with Caruthers tourney MVP.
Photographs provided by The College at Brockport Athletic Department.
