NSU men, women roll into Scope
Both teams are seeded No. 1, have momentum
Norfolk State has the No. 1 seeds in the men’s and women’s brackets and both teams are looking to get back to the conference final as the MEAC Basketball Tournaments tip off today at Scope.
Coach Larry Vickers and the women are looking to win backto-back MEAC titles, while coach Robert Jones and the men are hoping to avenge a painful last-second loss in last year’s title game.
Here’s a quick look at each MEAC Tournament:
Norfolk State women
The Spartans are starting the conference tournament with a matchup against No. 8 seed South Carolina State at noon today.
“We’re just happy to be here at this point,” Vickers said. “Happy to be here, somewhat healthy at this point. We’re just excited to play basketball. March Madness, we’ve been watching all the No. 1 seeds across the country go down, so we want to make sure that’s not us.”
Norfolk State beat the Bulldogs this season by 61 and 62 points. The Spartans’ offense took a step back in recent games, something Vickers said is the biggest point of emphasis during the team’s preparation.
“We’ve been struggling to shoot the ball a little bit,” Vickers said. “We’ve been struggling to score these last couple of weeks. You know, we were scoring high 70s, low 80s and then we kind of hit a lull. Teams are starting to see us twice, they’re starting to adjust. So I’m telling my team now we got to adjust off their adjustments and get back to playing good offense.”
Vickers said he feels the Spartans’ defense is rolling at the perfect time. Norfolk State hasn’t allowed a team to score more than 60 points since Jan. 20.
“Our man defense has never been this good,” Vickers said. “If you would’ve told me we would’ve
played that much man against Howard, I would’ve told you no way. We’ve been locked in, man defense, which gives us another element of something that we can rely on this week.”
Kierra Wheeler feels that the Spartans have struggled with communication at times. But during the last week of practice, the star forward said the team has gotten better thanks to an extra level of focus.
“I think that’s something that we have struggled with all year … is being on the same page at all times for 40 minutes,” Wheeler said. “We always have intense practice, that’s what we usually go for, but this week has been nothing but communication. Understanding, OK, these are my weaknesses and my strengths. Let’s make our weaknesses our strengths too.”
Wheeler and Diamond Johnson have led the way for Norfolk State all season, but they expect others to step up around them to help secure a conference title.
“I think Da’naijah (Williams) should be successful,” Johnson said. “She’s been llike our starter, our motor. I think the freshmen, (Anjanae Richardson, Da’Brya Clark), then you got Crystal (White) and Skye (Robinson). … So I think depending on the game, how to flow, everybody is going to have their moment.”
The Spartans start with a firstround matchup with No. 8 seed Coppin State at 6 p.m. today.
Norfolk State enters the tournament fresh off a 77-58 win over Howard. The big victory came at the perfect time after weathering several close games in most of conference play.
“We’ve been saying all year that we haven’t put together a complete game and Howard was close enough to that game, winning by 19 points,” Jones said. “We won the last few games by 19 points. So that was finally a breath of fresh air, unlike these two-point, four-point overtime wins and things like that. So it seemed like we turned the corner a little bit with being able to put together a complete game and it’s the right time of the year to get to do it.”
Star guard Jamarii Thomas said the big wins to close out the regular season were perfect for the team’s confidence heading into the tournament. But he stressed that the preparation and attitude of the team don’ t change ahead of the tournament.
“Everything stays the same, you just got to ramp up your intensity and your focus has got to go up,” Thomas said. “It’s a different time of the year, it’s March. Everybody wants the same thing, there’s one bone and eight dogs. So everybody is trying to get that one bone and we’ re trying to get that bone.”
Coppin State enters the game with a 2-26 record, but that mark can be deceiving, Jones said. Cop pin
State hung around with Norfolk State in both their matchups this season and Jones is calling the firstround match up a“trap game” for his squad.
“No matter what you tell these guys, these guys look at the records, everybody loves to look through the records ,” Jones said .“They’ ll say ,‘ Oh you’ re 21 wins, they’ re two wins, this is supposed to be an easy one.’ But at the end of the day, now everyone’s 0-0 and a lot of people don’t understand that. We want to make sure our guys understand that and hopefullywe come with the right focus to try toge tour first win of the season .”