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Wagner relied on his grit and intensity to get to the NCAA Tournament, and the Seahawks made another statement once they got there.
Sixteenth-seeded Wagner fought off a late comeback attempt by Howard to escape with a 71-68 victory in their NCAA Tournament First Four game Tuesday night at the University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio .
The Seahawks moved on to play No. 1 North Carolina in the round of 16 on Thursday in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the West Region.
In doing so, Wagner was the exact definition of “survive and advance.”
Wagner, coached by former St. Anthony High School and Seton Hall star Donald Copeland, didn’t have an easy path to the Big Dance, but the Seahawks overcame adversity.
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“I mean, it’s phenomenal,” Copeland said. “You dream of this moment, not only as a player but as a coach, to compete for a championship, and we did it regardless of what we were going through. We never stopped believing. We never stopped having expectations of ourselves.”
As the No. 6 seed in the NEC Tournament, Wagner went on the road and beat the top three seeds, including No. 2 Merrimack in the finals, to win its first conference tournament title since 2003.
Make that even more notable?
Wagner has had seven healthy players over an extended period.
Copeland’s team continued its momentum Tuesday night, although Howard did his best to take it away late.
The Seahawks opened a 17-point lead on Howard with just over 16 minutes left in the second half. The Bison cut it to seven with 11 minutes left, but Wagner went back up by double digits until Howard again closed his deficit to single digits in the final minutes.
It was a wild ending.
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Wagner’s Melvin Council Jr., who finished with a game-high 21 points, made a difficult shot at the 1:24 mark and drew the foul. Council committed the foul but missed the free throw.
Howard cut it to three points with just over a minute left when Marcus Dockery got a steal as the Bisons pressed, leading to an Isiah Warfield layup.
After Council missed a jumper at the other end, Howard guard Bryce Harris drove to the basket and made a tough layup to make it a one-point game with 17 seconds left.
Howard then fouled Julian Brown, who made both free throws to increase Wagner’s lead to three.
The Bison attempted three three-pointers in the final seconds and managed to grab the offensive rebounds, but couldn’t drain any of them.
Thus, Wagner earned his first NCAA tournament victory in program history.
Three conclusions
1. Give Wagner credit for his courage and intensity.
Playing with seven players is not easy.
Far, far from that.
And yet, despite that challenge, which has hampered the Seahawks’ ability to even hold live practices, Wagner has fought through it, and he did so on a big stage Tuesday night.
Wagner held Howard to 38.6 percent shooting (the Bison were 7 of 24 from three-point range).
Copeland has done a masterful job as a coach getting every ounce of production and energy out of the players he has available.
“Having seven players, I imagine in some places they could just walk into the gym and just, ‘Hey, listen, we have seven, let’s go through the motions,'” Copeland said. “We never did that. We prepared the right way. We expected to win even when we lost.”
2. Wagner played efficiently offensively
The Seahawks entered the game with the sixth-best defense in the country, allowing 62.1 points per game.
They again played well on that end of the floor against Howard, but their offense was stellar as well.
Wagner shot 52.7 percent from the field, including 8 of 17 from the perimeter.
The Seahawks had 16 assists on 29 field goals.
3. Good game from Bergen Catholic graduate Julian Brown
The 6-foot-1 sophomore guard finished with 15 points on 4-of-7 shooting (3-of-4 from long range).
Brown hit a 3-pointer with eight minutes left that put Wagner up by 13 points. And, of course, he was spot on with his late free throws.
Perhaps Brown’s most impressive statistic of the night?
Brown played all 40 minutes.
Wagner needed them all.
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