LIU’s dominating 91-70 over Mount Saint Mary’s on Tuesday night earned them their 3rd consecutive Northeast Conference Championship, and their 3rd consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament.
The Blackbirds of LIU showed tremendous heart and perseverance this season as they would lose key players to suspension, and the reigning NEC player of the year Julian Boyd tore his ACL in December. Prior to Boyd’s injury he was averaging 18.5 points per game.
At one point this season the Blackbirds were 5-10 and some people began to count them out. But the Blackbirds would regroup and go on a roll, winning 15 of their next 18 games that culminated with the win over Saint Mary’s.
In the victory over Saint Mary’s, C.J Garner scored a career high 31 points on 13-17 shooting from the field. Jamal Olaswere who won this season’s NEC Player of the Year award, scored 15 points and grabbed 15 rebounds.
“Me and C.J. talked about everything we’ve been through from the suspensions, your player of the year goes down — it could have gone both ways,” said senior Jamal Olasewere.”We knew this one was personal.”
After a close 1st half where LIU led by four going into halftime, LIU went on a 14-2 run to begin the second half and put the game out of reach.
C.J. Garner averaged 28 points during the tournament, was named the tournament’s most valuable player.
The combination of Garner and Olaswere who were also teammates in high school have been a difficult matchup for teams to deal with. In their game on March 2nd against Quinnipac, the duo of Olaswere and Garner became the 2nd pair teammates to score 30 points in a NCAA game. In the process, they each set a career high in points in a game Olaswere (33) Garner (30)
LIU will now tune in this Sunday for Selection Sunday to see which team they will play in the NCAA Tournament. The Blackbirds are 5th in the nation in scoring, and have the potential to be one of this year’s Cinderella teams.