For most teams, it’s far tougher being the hunted than the hunter, harder wearing the target than aiming for it. If LIU-Brooklyn learned that in a shocking 28-point beating at the hands of Monmouth to close the regular season, the Blackbirds put those lessons to use in last night’s 80-68 win over Sacred Heart in the quarterfinals of the Northeast Conference tournament in Brooklyn.
The top-seeded Blackbirds, who had hard-earned victories in two nailbiters against the eighth-seeded Pioneers in the regular season, opened their defense of the NEC tourney title with their sights firmly set on another trip to the NCAA Tournament.
“No loss is good … [but] maybe they listened a little better this week, maybe their confidence was getting a little too high,’’ said coach Jim Ferry, whose Blackbirds host Quinnipiac in Sunday’s 6 p.m. semifinal. “But I don’t ever look at losses as being good. My world stops when we lose, it doesn’t start again until we win again.’’
They won in style, with junior forward Jamal Olasewere leading five double-figure scorers with a team-high 20 points, eight rebounds and three steals. He also blocked a shot into the stands and finished off a nasty alley-oop as the Blackbirds (23-8) ran their home winning streak to 25 games, second-best in the nation.
“I try to do as much as I can for this team, because I know how bad they want to win it, and I want to win just as bad as them,’’ said Olasewere. “We knew we had to bounce back somehow. … Sacred Heart wasn’t going to come and just lay down for us. We had to come in and fight.’’
NEC Player of the Year Julian Boyd had 16 points and six boards, and sophomore point guard Jason Brickman had a dozen points and 13 assists. Those assists tied the NEC tourney single-game mark, his 226 broke Charles Jones’ school season record, and he flawlessly ran LIU’s attack against a 2-3 matchup zone.
Shane Gibson, the fourth-leading scorer in the nation, had a game-high 22 points for Sacred Heart (14-18) before fouling out.
“You know a kid’s really good when you’re happy a kid only got 22,” Ferry said. “The kid’s a star.’’
Ferry’s Blackbirds led just 21-20 before using an 11-0 run to seize a lead they never surrendered.
Michael Culpo, the only senior in LIU’s rotation, started it with a right-wing 3-pointer to stop Sacred Heart’s 7-0 run, and Olasewere scored to make it 32-20.
Sacred Heart kept pecking away at the lead, finally cutting it to 41-40 on a Nick Greenbacker putback. But Boyd answered with a dead-on 3-pointer, Kenny Onyechi had a block and Brandon Thompson (career-high tying 11 points) sank two foul shots to push it back to 48-40 and the Blackbirds never looked back.
