Tigers steamroll Huskies in CAA quarterfinals

Towson shot 53.8-percent from the floor in their blowout victory against Northeastern in the CAA tournament quarterfinals.

Remember last year when Northeastern upset the Towson men’s basketball team in the quarterfinals of the CAA Tournament? The Tigers weren’t letting that happen again.

Towson rolled over the Huskies 82-54 in their quarterfinals game of the CAA tournament hosted in North Charleston, South Carolina to move into the semifinals against the host College of Charleston on Sunday at 4:30 pm.

The victory also clinched Towson’s 20th victory of the season, their third 20-win season in the last four years.

“We didn’t want to feel like we felt last year, so that was definitely some motivation for us coming into this game to beat them,” Arnaud William Adala Moto said.

Surging freshman guard Zane Martin led the Tigers with 17 points on 7-for-10 shooting from the floor, but overall the team shot a remarkable 53.8-percent from the floor and showed off some nice long-distance shooting with a 7-for-15 effort. And of course, the Tigers rebounding and defense were huge factors in the win. Towson outrebounded Northeastern 43-28 and held them to only 27.5-percent shooting in the blowout win.

Towson was able to gradually grow their lead to as many as 16 points in the first half of the game. They didn’t use any huge runs, jut simply made more shots at a better rate than Northeastern did.

“Coach designed the plays out of the middle of the zone. We knew they were going to play zone,” Adala Moto said. “We worked on attacking their zone all week and finishing strong when we had the chance. Our mentality was to attack the basket and find open guys when they were collapsing in the paint.”

At halftime, Towson led 37-23 and outscored their opponent 11-4 to start the second half to push their lead up to 21 points.

With 9:53 remaining in the game Dennis Tunstall maneuvered his way to the basket in the paint and dunk the ball to give the Tigers a 58-35 lead. At that point, Towson would have had to have a dramatic collapse not to be victorious.

Northeastern tried to make that happen as they held the Tigers scoreless for the next three minutes and used a 12-1 overall run to make it a 12-point game with 6:42 left, but Martin nailed a 3-pointer and then a jumper to end the Tigers four-minute field goal drought and gave them a pretty significant lead once again.

Martin scored nine points over just about a minute and a half to grow the Tigers lead back up to 21 points at 70-49 with only 4:02 remaining.

“I just felt like we needed somebody to pick it up and I feel like I am that guy and I always like to take it into my hands,” Martin said. “I am not nervous anymore. “

Towson shut Northeastern out for the final two-plus minutes of the game and continued to make free throws and layups down the stretch to further secure the sure blowout victory.

Three other Tigers scored in double-digits along with Martin. Adala Moto scored 11 of his 12 points in the first half of the game. Brian Starr also had 10 points while Jordan McNeil scored 10 points from off the bench.

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Corey Johns

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You could say Corey was born to become a sports journalist. His father won a national championship coaching college soccer. His mother is a baseball fanatic who hasn't missed seeing an Orioles game since 1983 (literally, sometimes it's annoying). His great uncle was a big-time boxing promoter and his maternal grandfather was once a department head at the Baltimore Sun. Basically, sports and journalism run through his blood. He played just about every little league sports there was when he was a kid and was a multi-sport athlete in high school; even playing in the first-ever high school sanction Rugby game in the country. Eventually he retired from sports as an undefeated Maryland state Rugby champion as a high school senior. Perhaps lack of athletic talent has more to do with the retirement, but he will tell you that it more had to do with a great desire to jump right into media. Upon his graduation from University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a triple communications major, Corey started the So Much Sports network and has continued to grow his websites and continues to work to make them premier sports media outlets.

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