OAC Men’s Basketball Final and Conference NCAA Invitation Outlook
February 29, 2020 by C. Jay Prescher
The Ohio Athletic Men’s Basketball Tournament was carved down to two teams this past Thursday evening. John Carroll University will travel down to Alliance to tangle with regular season champion Mount Union at The MAAC.
Here’s how we got to this exciting match-up, and who we think will cut down the nets and earn the OAC automatic bid to the 2020 NCAA DIII tournament. Ahead of Monday’s anticipated selection show, we’ll talk about a scenario of how the OAC could send three schools to the big dance.
OAC Semi-Final Recap
Heidelberg earned the Cinderella tag by upsetting the #4 seeded Baldwin Wallace Yellow Jackets in Tuesday’s quarterfinal. The Student Princes were the only visiting team to win on enemy hardwood.
They also carried a nice two game winning streak into a game against a one conference loss Mount Union team. Heidelberg also laid claim to being that team that blemished an otherwise perfect regular season for the Purple Raiders.
Once again, D’Vontay Friga came off the Purple Raider’s bench, but made a bigger impact than any of the five starters. Friga surpassed the 1,000 point career point mark, leading all scorers on the evening with 20 points.
He didn’t have his trademark three-point marksmanship dialed in, but he made up for a 1-8 night beyond the arc with a perfect 7-for-7 game from the charity stripe.
Mount Union would extract revenge for that single OAC loss. The Purple Raiders blitzed the upset-minded Student Princes right out of the gate. Mount Union made exactly half their field goal attempts while holding Heidelberg to under 40 percent.
Down at the Banjo on the campus of Marietta College, the Pioneers had hoped to secure a chance to avenge two losses to Mount Union during the regular season. However, they were welcoming a basketball team with senior leadership that knows how to step up in big games.
What was ironic was that Jimmy and Ryan Berger played well, but it was an unsung bench player that put a first-half dagger in the hearts of the Pioneer faithful. One of John Carroll’s key shooters Connor Fitzgerald did not play.
It was a sophomore second unit player that did a yeomen’s amount of damage to the Pioneers in the first half. PJ Flannery would nail four triples for 12 of the Blue Streaks 54 first-half points. It wasn’t as much the number, but their timing.
John Carroll nailed 60 percent of their shots behind the arc during the first 20-minutes. Despite a voracious second-half comeback, Marietta could not overcome the blazing start. For the third time in the last five seasons, the Blue Streaks ended the Pioneers OAC tournament on a losing note.
OAC Tournament Championship – John Carroll vs. Mount Union
The Blue Streaks and Purples Raiders will be facing one another for the ninth time in the conference tournament. John Carroll owns five wins thus far, four of those coming in succession after a first-round loss in 1990.
The only other time they met in the final game was in 2004. The Blue Streaks won a thrilling two-point game to cut down the nets. Since 2014, the two schools have split four semi-final games, never beating the other in back-to-back seasons.
The first of these semi-final games was another two-point battle, followed by a one-point overtime win by Mount Union. As the number two seed last season, the Purple Raiders ended the John Carroll season with a 10-point win.
This year’s championship, matches two very talented teams loaded with excellent shooters. Jackson Sartain leads the conference in shooting percentage beyond the arc, and is tied for fourth most triples made per game with teammate Ryan Berger.
Nathan Bower-Malone leads this triple-threat Purple Raider scoring punch at 16.6 ppg. All five of these stars rank in the top-10 in the conference in scoring, with twin-brother Jimmy Berger not far off the pace at 14th.
John Carroll leads the conference in average points scored per game, but Mount Union leads in fewest points allowed. Something will have to give at The MAAC. As crunch time rolls around, only Sartain and Gurley aren’t seniors.
No one wants to remember their last Ohio Athletic Conference game as a loss. Expect something dramatic from one of these outstanding seniors as the clock ticks down tonight in Alliance.
As for motivational factors to win besides that last conference game, John Carroll has a lot to lose. The Marietta College Pioneers will have a vested interest in the outcome as well. Here’s how tonight’s OAC men’s basketball final could have an important impact on Monday’s NCAA DIII tournament announcements.
NCAA Tournament Bids – Three’s Company for the OAC?
How Saturday’s OAC men’s basketball final plays out will hold more importance than just awarding John Carroll or Mount Union another banner for their gymnasium rafters. It could have a bearing on which, and more importantly, how many OAC schools earn NCAA tournament bids.
John Carroll would appear to be in the most precarious position of the three teams with a realistic chance to dance in March. The Blue Streaks have eight losses on the season. However, every one of those defeats came inside their OAC schedule.
If they lose the final to the Purple Raiders, then Mount Union gets the automatic bid and John Carroll will need to leap a few teams to get an at-large invitation. Marietta has two fewer losses and an impressive 21 victories.
But, Marietta has to look at some other thoughts that might influence the committee’s mindset as they decide on the at-large teams. Two of the Pioneer loses came to the 7th ranked Purple Raiders.
A loss in Tiffin to The Berg could be one loss that haunts the Pioneers. Even after losing at home on Thursday, the Pioneers have a good shot at maintaining a top-25 ranking.
But, if John Carroll loses tonight and the committee decides nine losses are too many to get a dance invitation, Marietta could lose out as well based on a two-loss resume to the Blue Streaks.
The committee might be unable to seal the envelope on a Marietta invite if they snub the Blue Streaks as a nine loss/conference tournament runner-up. A Pioneer at-large invitation ahead of John Carroll would also make folks in University Heights rather perturbed.
One-third of Marietta’s six defeats were courtesy of the Blue Streaks. Now, John Carroll could do themselves and the OAC conference a favor by winning the automatic bid outright. That could weigh heavily in favor of Marietta.
Mount Union will obviously get the automatic bid as tournament champ, but adding a school with two-thirds of their losses coming to tournament invites would be a much easier proposition for committee members to swallow.
As we approach Monday’s selection show, who wins the OAC championship game will present two scenarios. Either two will be guaranteed entry into the big dance, or one will be in and a pair of very very good DIII basketball teams will sit on the proverbial bubble.
The Word Jester is not affiliated with the Ohio Athletic Conference, any member school, coach, or player.
The opinions expressed in this story are the exclusive viewpoints of the author.
They do not reflect the points of view, policies, or principles of any agency or organization.