Sequel of last season plays to poor reviews for Tribe
Northeastern again rolls into town, rolls to easy victory while W&M has no answer
WILLIAMSBURG — Five games into the conference schedule, William and Mary was among the Colonial Athletic Association’s top three teams in scoring defense, field-goal percentage defense and 3-point percentage defense. No other team could say that.
The Tribe won’t be able to say it anymore.
In a virtual repeat of last year’s game at Kaplan Arena, right down to the final score, Northeastern turned what was a tie game late in the first half into a 90-70 blowout Saturday afternoon. The Huskies shot 60 percent from the field and finished 12 of 25 from the 3-point arc.
“They carved us up last year, physically beat us up, and they did the same to us today,” W&M coach Tony Shaver said. “They’re really good. Their record might be 9-8, but they had some early injuries and are just now getting whole.
“We got beat by a much better basketball team. I mean, let’s be honest about it. They’re much more experienced, much more physical than we are, and their execution was at a much higher level than ours.”
Twelve months ago, Northeastern also beat W&M 90-70 at Kaplan. The Huskies shot 71 percent in that game and trailed only once (at 2-1).
This time, William and Mary (7-11, 3-3) led 18-13 nine minutes into the first half. And with three minutes to go, Chase Audige’s 3-pointer tied the game at 30.
But Northeastern (9-8, 3-2) closed with a 10-4 run. Then the Huskies outscored W&M 28-14 in the first 10:07 of the second half on 12-of-17 shooting. Northeastern took its biggest lead at 81-53 with 4:22 remaining.
“It wasn’t them more than it was us,” W&M forward Nathan Knight said. “We kind of strayed away from the things that make us good as a team, like being fundamentally sound on both sides of the court.
“Northeastern’s a very good team. When you play the way we played, and you give up possessions like we did, it’s easy for them to shoot 60 percent. It’s easy to do that when you’re that good of a team and (we’re) giving up freebies like that.”
The worse things got, the more the Tribe became frustrated.
“We finished the (first) half very poorly,” Shaver said. “Nate got his second foul, and we had a lineup in that wasn’t our best. Plays didn’t go our way and our heads dropped.
“We got down on ourselves, and can’t do that. Certainly in the second half, it spiraled on us.”
W&M, which has lost two in a row at home, was equally ineffective on the offensive end. The Tribe shot 45.5 percent, 8 of 22 from deep, and committed 16 turnovers. Both teams were coming off overtime games Thursday night. Northeastern won at Elon in one extra session. The Tribe lost to Hofstra at home in three overtimes.
And William and Mary knows that’s no excuse for the lack of energy it showed Saturday.
“We didn’t respond the way we’re supposed to,” Knight said. “It’s tough to play triple overtime for any player, regardless of how physically and mentally in shape you are, and then come out and play on Saturday.
“But it’s expected. If you want to be at the level we are, you have to do that. And we didn’t do those things today.” Dave Johnson, 757-247-4649, djohnson@dailypress.com, @DaveJohnsonDP