BROOKLYN, N.Y. — LIU is headed back to the NCAA Tournament.
The Sharks took care of business Tuesday night in Brooklyn, beating No. 3 seed Mercyhurst 79-70 to win the Northeast Conference championship. The victory gave LIU its seventh NEC tournament title and sends the program into March Madness as a No. 16 seed.
LIU, which finished the season 24-10 overall and 15-3 in conference play, will face top-seeded Arizona on Friday at Viejas Arena in San Diego.
The tournament bid is a big one for the program. It is LIU’s first NCAA appearance since the 2017-18 season and the first since the school’s athletic programs began competing together under the LIU Sharks banner. Overall, it will be the program’s eighth trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Strong response after early Mercyhurst push
Mercyhurst jumped out early and scored the first five points of the championship game, but LIU responded quickly. Malachi Davis knocked down a pair of early three-pointers, and Greg Gordon helped the Sharks settle in as they pushed ahead.
The game stayed close throughout the first half. Mercyhurst kept hanging around, but LIU never lost control and carried a 42-40 lead into halftime.
LIU takes command in the second half
The second half was tight for a while, with both teams battling for momentum. LIU grabbed control for good when Jamal Fuller scored just over six minutes into the half. From there, the Sharks held their ground and did not trail again.
A late three from Mason Porter-Brown with 1:56 left gave LIU some breathing room, and the Sharks closed it out from there in front of their home crowd.
Gordon and Davis both finished with 24 points to lead the way. Porter-Brown added 14 points, while Fuller had 10 points, 13 rebounds and five assists. It was Fuller’s second double-double of the season and one of his strongest all-around performances of the year.
The win also gave LIU both the NEC regular-season title and the conference tournament championship in the same season for the fifth time in program history. The others came in 1983-84, 1996-97, 2010-11 and 2011-12.
Rod Strickland’s rebuild reaches a milestone
LIU had already secured the conference’s automatic NCAA Tournament berth before the title game because Mercyhurst is still reclassifying to Division I and was not eligible for the automatic bid. Even so, the Sharks made sure there would be no questions by finishing the job with a championship performance.
This run means even more considering where the program has been in recent years.
Head coach Rod Strickland has overseen a major turnaround in four seasons. LIU went from struggling near the bottom of the league to becoming a postseason threat, and now the Sharks are back in the NCAA Tournament. The climb was not easy. The 2022-23 season was rough, 2023-24 brought more challenges, and last year’s team came close before falling short.
This season, everything came together.
Now LIU has an NEC title, an NCAA Tournament berth, and a first-round matchup with Arizona waiting on Friday. No matter what happens next, the Sharks have already put together one of the program’s most important seasons in years.
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