Editor’s note: This column was updated March 11 to reflect the results of weekend games and tournaments.
March Madness, the annual college basketball rite of spring, is upon us. To be precise, it starts March 19 with the men’s Division I tournament and March 20 with the women’s, and ends April 8 for the men and April 7 for the women.
Selection Sunday, when the brackets and seeds are announced, is March 17.
But who cares about precision? March Madness has begun with tournaments to crown conference, NCAA Division II and III and junior college champions. And we have had a taste of this excitement right here in the Ocean State.
Rhode Island College played its worst game of the season in the sectional semifinal Friday night and lost to Washington and Lee, 61-55. RIC shot only 27.9 percent from the floor (24-86) and a pathetic 13 percent from three-point range (3-23). The point total was the team’s lowest this season.
Washington and Lee’s Mary Schleusner had something to do with the result. The sophomore star finished with 34 points, 33 rebounds, 5 blocked shots and 3 assists. Angelina Nardolillo led RIC with 15 points.
Wartburg edged Bates by a point in the other sectional semifinal and defeated Washington and Lee, 68-58, in the final Saturday night to advance to the Final Four Thursday. Wartburg will play Smith, and undefeated Transylvania will meet undefeated NYU. The winners will play Saturday night for the national championship.
The record-breaking Rhode Island College women finished 29-1, their best season ever. Last week they received three of the four major Little East Conference Awards. Graduate student Sophia Guerrier is the 2024 Player of the Year, an award she won as a senior in 2021. Senior Jeniyah Jones is the Defensive Player of the Year and Jenna Cosgrove the Coach of the Year for the fourth time in five years.
There’s more. Guerrier, senior Izzy Booth from Newport and junior Madison Medbury from Scituate were named to the All-LEC first team and Jones and junior Angelina Nardolillo to the second team. Guerrier, Jones and Medbury made the LEC all-defensive team.
Cosgrove has touted her team’s balance, and it has been front and center this postseason. Four different Anchorwomen have led the scoring. In the Little East Tournament semifinal, Medbury had 15 points against Eastern Connecticut. In the title game against UMass Dartmouth, Jones led with 14 points.
Booth was the top scorer with 13 points against St. Joseph’s of Maine in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Nardolillo topped the stat sheet in the second round with 19 points.
RIC’s defense held its first four tournament opponents to 40, 52, 37 and 43 points. The margins of victory were 27, 15, 19 and 23 points.
All four games were at home, where RIC was 16-0 this season until Friday night.
This success was not sudden. Since the start of the 20-21 season, Rhode Island College is 90-11, or roughly 22-3 per season.
Can we say mini-dynasty?
Cosgrove was heart-broken by the loss but didn’t have time to mourn. Pregnant the entire season, she went into labor Saturday afternoon and delivered a baby boy.
The Community College of Rhode Island women’s basketball team is heading back to the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III Championship March 13-16 at Rochester, Minn. The Knights are 20-7 and ranked No. 11 nationally.
CCRI received one of eight automatic bids to the 12-team dance thanks to its 11-0 record in Region XXI and its regional championship. This is CCRI’s third consecutive trip to the national event.
CCRI is seeded No. 9 and will play No. 8 Prince George’s Community College in the first round March 13. Prince George’s is 13-5 and the three-time Mid-Atlantic District champion. The Lady Owls lead the nation in three-point shooting with a 9.3 average. They rank eighth in scoring (74.2), 10th in free throws made (12.1) and 14th in assists.
CCRI is fifth in the nation in three-pointers made (6.8) and eighth in three-point percentage (30.3).
Sophomore Nysia Ortiz from Providence leads the Knight with 17.6 points per game. Freshman Angelisse Melendez from North Providence is averaging 15.1 points. Freshman center Stephanie Walker from Providence averages 10.4 points and 10.5 rebounds. She and freshman forward Tatiana Pereira started every game.
Bryant (20-12) rode Rafael Pinzon’s career-high 35 points to an 84-58 rout of Maine in the America East quarterfinals Saturday and will play UMass Lowell Tuesday night in Lowell. Binghamton eliminated the Bryant women in the America East quarterfinals Friday night. The Bulldogs finished 15-15.
Bryant seniors Sherif Gros-Bullock and Earl Timberlake made the America East first team. Gross-Bullock was fourth in the league in scoring with an 18.1 points-per-game average. Timberlake was 11th in scoring (14.6) and third in rebounding (9.0).
Mia Mancini was the America East women’s rookie of the year. Mariona Planes-Fortuny made first-team all-conference. She averaged 16.5 points per game.
Brown is the new name on the local postseason calendar. The Bears clinched the fourth and final spot for Ivy Madness next week by sweeping Harvard and Dartmouth at the Pizzitola Center March 1-2.
That was a weekend for the ages as far as Brown basketball is concerned. The Bears edged Harvard in overtime, 71-68, thanks to Kino Lilly Jr.’s game-tying three-pointer with 5.8 seconds remaining in the second half and Alexander Lesburt Jr.’s game-winning three-pointer with 56.3 seconds to play in overtime.
The home finale March 2 against Dartmouth turned into the Kimo Ferrari Show. The senior scored 39 points, his career high, made 10 three-pointers – a Brown record – and sank 14 of his 16 shots. Not surprisingly, he was the Ivy League player of the week.
Brown stunned Yale, 84-81, in overtime March 9 for its sixth consecutive Ivy League victory, its longest Ivy run since 2007-2008 and its first win in New Haven since 2010. Aaron Cooley’s buzzer-beating three-pointer from the left was the game winner.
Brown improved to 12-17 overall, 8-6 in the Ivy League. The fourth-seeded Bears will play top-seeded Princeton Saturday in Ivy Madness at Columbia. Second-seeded Yale and third-seeded Cornell will meet in the other semifinal. The two winners will play Sunday for the title.
Ivy Madness started in 2018. As conference tournaments exploded in popularity, the Ivies held out, boasting that their entire 14-game league season amounted to a tournament. League officials saw the light six years ago. This will be Brown’s first appearance.
URI (21-14) lost the Atlantic 10 women’s tournament final to Richmond, 65-51, Sunday. It was the Rams first appearance in the final since 2003. Richmond is 29-5.
Ninth-ranked UConn trounced Providence, 86-53, in the Big East women’s quarterfinals and blew out Marquette by 29 in the semifinals. Surprising Georgetown, the tournament sixth seed, also reached the Big East final Monday night.