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WELCOME THE TEAM BACK: Wednesday at 5 p.m. at Chicken Lou's on Forsyth St.
N. CHARLESTON, S.C. – Behind a 21-point effort from CAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player
Vasa Pusica, the Northeastern men's basketball team is headed back to the NCAA Tournament upending No. 1 seeded Hofstra 84-72 on Tuesday night.
The Huskies return to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in the last five seasons and the first time since the 2014-15 season.
Pusica finished with 21 points on a career-best 7-of-12 shooting from deep as the Huskies finished with 14 3-pointers on the night and shot 50.0 percent from the field for the 15
thtime in 2018-19.
Northeastern's team-first style of play was on display all night as the seven Huskies that checked into the game all finished with at least nine points. Led by Pusica,
Jordan Roland, All-Tournament Team honoree
Shawn Occeus and
Tomas Murphy all finished with 11 points,
Bolden Brace had 10 and
Anthony Green and Donnell Gresham each had nine on the night.
Brace also added 10 rebounds and nine assists finishing with his sixth double-double of the season, and near triple-double, the most since Scott Eatherton had 19 in 2013-14.
Justin Wright-Foreman finished with 29 points for the Pride while Jacquil Taylor added eight points and 15 rebounds.
After shaking out all the jitters in the first four minutes of play, the Huskies went out on an 8-0 run highlighted by back-to-back treys from Pusica and a layup from Murphy. After checking in at the media, Occeus picked off Hofstra three times and nearly added a fourth steal in just a 90 second span.
Northeastern used the deep ball to get out to a 23-12 lead, handing Hofstra its largest deficit of the tournament, and forcing CAA Coach of the Year Joe Mihalich to call a timeout with just under eight minutes to go in the first half.
Following a couple Wright-Foreman three pointers that made it a 27-20 game, advantage Huskies, with five-and-a-half minutes to go, the Huskies finished the first half on a 15-6 run, capped by a Green slam to send the Huskies to the locker room with a 16-point, 42-46 lead.
Hofstra came out of the locker room on fire racing out to a 12-2 run to make it a six-point game, 44-38, with 16 minutes to go in the second. Gresham stopped the bleeding with a trey from the corner and
Tomas Murphy added back-to-back layups to keep the Huskies ahead.
A 10-0 Hofstra run evened the score with nine minutes to go at 54-all, but Pusica responded with a deep three on the other end while Murphy added a jump hook to regain a five-point advantage.
Pusica went to work knocking down a pair of deep triples, to build up the Huskies lead back to 11 points with four minutes to go. After Hofstra cut it to six, Pusica knocked down his career-best seventh three of the night to make it 74-66 with 1:42 to go and seal the victory.
The Huskies will find out where they are headed in the NCAA First Round on Sunday, March 17 at 6 p.m.The one-hour Selection Show, produced in partnership between CBS Sports and Turner Sports, will be broadcast live from CBS Studios in New York.
