Last weekend men’s basketball hosted the Centennial Conference championship, beating Muhlenberg College 65-62 in the semifinals on Friday, but falling to #8 Johns Hopkins University 71-73 in the finals on Saturday, Feb. 29. With 26 straight wins, they were the only undefeated team left in all of the NCAA.
Through the majority of the game, the Garnet led the match by a small margin. In the final possession of the game, the Garnet and Blue Jays were tied 71-71, with Hopkins’ junior guard Conner Delaney on the ball. In the dying seconds, Delaney quickly feinted, creating space for himself to make a mid-range shot with less than a second left, ending the game on a buzzer-beater. Delaney recorded 32 points on Saturday, the only Hopkins player to break into the double digits that night. For the Garnet, Vinny DeAngelo ’23 dropped 23 points, followed by Nate Shafer ’20 with eighteen, George Visconti ’22 with fourteen, and Zac O’Dell ’20 with nine. All four Garnet athletes were nominated to All Conference teams, with Shafer earning Defensive Player of the Year and DeAngelo earning Rookie of the Year. Coach Landry Kosmalski was awarded Coach of the Year, his fourth time in five years.
The Garnet, still ranked #1 in the nation, are set to host the first two games of the NCAA tournament on Friday. They face off against Brooklyn College at 7:30 p.m. on March 6.
