BALTIMORE — Northeastern captured the CAA championship Monday night with a 72-61 victory over top-seeded William & Mary, which failed again to earn its first trip to the NCAA tournament.
Quincy Ford scored 22 points and David Walker added 15 for the Huskies (23-11), who will be making their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1991.
That’s a relatively short stretch compared to that of William & Mary (20-12), one of only five of the original Division I teams that has never participated in the NCAA tournament. The others: Army, Northwestern, St. Francis Brooklyn and The Citadel.
No. 3 seed Northeastern scored the game’s first 10 points and never trailed in winning its first CAA title. The last time the Huskies made it to the NCAA tournament, they did so as champions of the North Atlantic Conference, now known as the America East.
William & Mary was playing in the CAA final for the fourth time in eight years. The result of each of those games has been frustratingly identical.
Marcus Thornton scored 20 points for the Tribe, who trailed by 22 points with 3:39 left before making a run that came far too late.
In the end, William & Mary couldn’t come up with a suitable encore for its rousing 92-91 double-overtime win over Hofstra in the semifinals.
After falling behind 42-29 early in the second half, the Tribe held the Huskies scoreless for nearly six minutes while cutting the gap to seven points.
Caleb Donnelly ended the dry spell with a 3-pointer and Ford followed with a layup. After Sean Sheldon made a free throw on the other end, Walker connected from beyond the arc for Northeastern. Zach Stahl capped the 11-1 run with a three-point play to make it 53-36 with 9:07 remaining.
Coming off a career-high, 33-point performance Sunday in which he took 18 free throws, Omar Prewitt was held scoreless in the first half, finished with four points on 1-for-7 shooting and went to the line just twice.
That silenced a crowd of 5,721 filled predominantly with William & Mary fans. Although the season ended in the same fashion as many that preceded it — no trip to the NCAAs — the Tribe could console itself with the knowledge that the team will be headed to the NIT as conference champions.
Northeastern finished tied for the regular-season title but was seeded third behind William & Mary and UNC-Wilmington following the tiebreaking process.
Ford scored 15 points, making all three of his shots from beyond the arc, and the Huskies went 64 percent from the floor in taking a 36-26 halftime lead.
Northeastern raced to a 10-0 advantage on 4-for-4 shooting while the Tribe went 0-for-2 with a pair of turnovers. After William & Mary coach Tony Shaver called a timeout, and the Tribe responded with a 15-5 run to pull even.
Minutes later, however, Scott Eatherton and Ford scored all the points in a 9-0 spurt that put the Huskies up, 29-20.
The last time the Huskies made it to the NCAA tournament, they were a No. 16 seed and lost to Dean Smith’s North Carolina team, 101-66.
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