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The Northeast Conference turns 30 years old in 2011 and the NCAA Division I athletics conference has launched a year-long celebration to commemorate three decades of remarkable achievements by NEC student-athletes, coaches, and administrators. With the calendar having turned to March and both the men’s and women’s basketball championship tournaments set to tip off, the NEC is pleased to introduce a special 30th anniversary series entitled “This Date in NEC Tournament History” presented by TD Bank.

March 11
On March 11, 2009, Robert Morris’ Dallas Green finished something that his senior teammate Jeremy Chappell started as a freshman. In a 2006 NEC quarterfinal round matchup, Chappell hit a game-winning three-pointer to sink Mount St. Mary’s in the first of five consecutive postseason meeting between the two rival programs. Mount St. Mary’s answered back in each of the next two seasons, eliminating Robert Morris in the 2007 quarterfinal round and a 2008 semifinal contest. On this date in 2009, the two met again, this time in the NEC Championship Game. With the game tied at 46-46 and Robert Morris holding for a final shot, Chappell began driving the lane. When the senior, who was voted the 2009 NEC Player of the Year, lost the ball, it appeared that this game was headed for overtime. Off of Chappell’s leg, the ball took a fortuitous bounce toward the right baseline where Green made the recovery. The junior forward, mostly known for his ability to set screens and play defense, had not scored a single point all day, but managed to rattle home a rushed eight-foot baseline jumper. The result was a 48-46 Robert Morris victory and the Colonials’ first NEC crown since 1992. “He probably was the fifth guy on the floor I would have picked [to take the shot],” said RMU head coach Mike Rice in the postgame press conference. “We ran the play I wanted, but they knocked it away and Dallas went and got it.”

Also on This Date - On March 11, 2006, Sacred Heart and Quinnipiac squared off in an All-Merritt Parkway women’s final in SHU’s Pitt Center. With nothing separating the two local rivals and fewer than four minutes remaining, a pair of Pioneers rose to the occasion. The late Lisa Moray hit a three-pointer to break a 53-53 tie with 3:32 remaining and SHU never looked back. Clinging to a 61-59 advantage, the Pioneers received a huge three-point play, the traditional way, from NEC Player of the Year Amanda Pape with 1:05 remaining in the game. Sacred Heart held on for a 69-65 victory and the program’s first-ever conference crown.

March 10
On March 10, 1988, the NEC’s first-ever all-Garden State Championship Game unfolded in Hackensack. Fairleigh Dickinson was contesting the NEC men’s basketball title tilt for the fourth straight season, while Monmouth was making its maiden voyage under 1988 NEC Coach of the Year Wayne Szoke. As it turns out, FDU’s Jaime Latney would make sure that it would be the Knights’ night. The three-time all-NEC first team selection played all 40 minutes, pouring in 39 points, on 15-for-22 shooting, and grabbing 10 boards. It would not be until 2006 that these two teams would meet again with the conference title on the line (See March 8).

Also on This Date – March 10, 1994 was a rather eventful day in the history of Northeast Conference women’s basketball. From the start, the 1994 women’s tournament was a special one being that the champion would receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in league history. With four teams still vying for a ticket to the Big Dance, NEC Tournament history was made in both semifinal contests on March 10. Saint Francis (PA) and Monmouth, the same two programs that will battle in the 2011 NEC Championship Game, produced the highest single-game scoring output the NEC Tournament has even seen. The second-seeded Red Flash and the third-seeded Hawks combined for a record 170 points. Ninety-two of those points came from the triumphant Red Flash, tying a NEC Tournament single-game team record. Meanwhile, Mount St. Mary’s downed Rider in the other semifinal match behind a record performance from rookie Amy Langville. Coming within one of the conference’s overall single-game postseason record, Langville, who would go onto win the NEC Player of the Year award two years later, dished out 11 assists. To this date, no other rookie has dished out as many as 10 in an NEC Tournament tilt.

March 9
On March 9, 1993, Rider’s Darrick Suber hit what will forever be known as “The Shot.” Rider and Wagner had spent all 39 minutes and 56 seconds exchanging blows in an NEC Championship Game for the ages. With Tim Capstraw’s Seahawks trailing Rider by one, Wagner’s Bobby Hopson came up with the ball following a missed free throw and sunk the go-ahead bucket. The over-capacity crowd at Rider’s 1,600-seat Alumni Gym, with the exception of a section of Seahawk fans, sat stunned as Wagner held a 64-63 lead with only four seconds remaining. Kevin Bannon’s Broncs, who needed to go the entire length of the floor, were about as close to defeat as a team could be, but Suber, a 2,000-point scorer and NEC Player of the Year, wasn’t going to let his career end this way. With Wagner sitting back in a prevent-type defense, Suber took the inbounds, sped up the floor, and, before a national television audience on ESPN, sunk the buzzer-beater of all buzzer-beaters. Rider 65, Wagner 64. The Broncs were going to the Big Dance. Click here to read more about “The Shot.”



Also on This Date – On March 9, 2008, Robert Morris’ Sade Logan crossed over into “The Zone.” With the Colonials facing Monmouth in a NEC women’s basketball semifinal round contest, Logan shot her way into the conference record book. Carrying Robert Morris to a 67-52 victory, Logan poured in 38 points on 15-of-30 shooting. Her 15 made field goals are tied for first place all-time in NEC Tournament single-game history, while her seven three-pointers sit alone atop the record book. Joining the likes of NEC legends Jess Zinobile, Beth Swink, and Ashlee Kelly, Logan, who won the 2008 NEC Player of the Year award, became only the fourth player in NEC Tournament history to score 38 points in one game.

On March 8, 2008, Robert Morris forward Chinata Nesbit, a two-time NEC Tournament MVP, turned in what is believed to be the only triple-double in Northeast Conference women’s postseason history. Defending NEC champion Robert Morris opened in the NEC quarterfinal round against a dangerous St. Francis (NY) team, which had pulled off an 8- vs. -1 upset over LIU one year earlier. Nesbit would make sure her Colonials didn’t slip up against the Terriers as she tallied 18 points, 24 rebounds, and 10 assists in a 77-62 victory. Nesbit, who finished with 14 offensive boards, posted the third highest single-game rebounding total in NEC Tournament annals.

Also on This Date – The 2006 Northeast Conference Men’s Basketball Championship Game was an all-Garden State affair in Hackensack between top-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson and its downstate neighbor Monmouth. The Knights were in control throughout much of the contest, but never managed to put Monmouth away, which allowed for one of the wildest finishes the Tournament had ever seen. Holding a 48-47 lead with 8.3 seconds remaining, FDU’s Bernell Murray had a chance to extend the advantage, but missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Monmouth’s Marques Alston, a New Jersey native, grabbed the rebound dished it to Tyler Azzarelli who found another Garden State product streaking up the floor. That man was Chris Kenny, who, like Alston, played his high school ball in Jersey’s Shore Conference. Kenny received the ball at half court and took it all the way in for the game-winning layup with 2.1 seconds remaining. As long-time Asbury Park Press writer Tony Graham said, “The FDU defense just disappeared. There wasn’t an FDU player within 10 feet of Kenny. It was as if he were practicing in a lay-up line.”

March 7
On March 7, 2009, the Red Flash resurfaced in the postseason.  Saint Francis (PA) had won nine NEC women’s basketball titles from 1996 through 2005 before missing out on the postseason entirely in 2006, 2007, and 2008.  In only her second season at the helm, head coach Susan Robinson Fruchtl led No. 3 seed Saint Francis into a quarterfinal round matchup against two-time defending league champion Robert Morris.  The Red Flash had not lost in the NEC Tournament since a setback to Mount St. Mary’s in the 1995 NEC Championship Game, and they wouldn’t lose on this day, either.  Rookie Brittany Lilley scored a game-high 19 points to lead the Red Flash to their 28th straight NEC Tournament victory in the form of a 72-60 triumph over the Keystone State rival Colonials.  The Flash would go onto defeat Central Connecticut in the semifinal round to run their unprecedented win NEC Tournament win streak to 29 straight games before falling to Sacred Heart in the final.  The postseason resurgence was not a "Flash" in the pan either.  Saint Francis (PA) returned to win the 2010 title and is the top seed in the 2011 bracket.

Also on This Date - March 7, 1986 was the day when a pair of tightly-contested men’s semifinal games unfolded in Robert Morris’ Sewall Center.  NEC Hall of Famer Terrence Bailey poured in a game-high 28 points for Wagner in the first game of the day, but his Seahawks came up four points short to Fairleigh Dickinson.  Damari Riddick had 25 points, nine rebounds, and four blocks in leading the Knights to what was their second of five consecutive NEC Championship Game appearances under head coach Tom Green, who still holds the NEC Tournament record for wins (26).  In the other semifinal, Marist shot 54.0 percent from the field to upend the host Robert Morris Colonials, 60-55. The game’s leading scorer was none other than future NBA star Rik Smits, who dropped in 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting. … On March 7, 2007, Central Connecticut and Sacred Heart squared off in Detrick Gymnasium with a lot more than just Constitution State bragging rights on the line.  The NEC men’s title and an NCAA Tournament berth were up for grabs before a frenzied crowd in New Britain, many of them holding up "Howie Heads" (cardboard cutouts of head coach Howie Dickenman’s face).  Neither Howie, nor his numerous supporters were disappointed that night as the Blue Devils erased a 10-point deficit with 10:37 to play and outlasted Sacred Heart, 74-70, in an NEC "instant classic."  It was the first-ever NEC Championship Game appearance for Dave Bike’s Pioneers, who would return to the same stage again in 2008.

March 6
On March 6, 1982, Brooklyn provided the backdrop for the conference’s first-ever championship game. The first season of ECAC Metro hoops came down to title bout between Robert Morris, a program on the rise after having made the gigantic leap from the junior college ranks to Division I only a few years earlier, and Long Island, which had qualified for the NCAA Tournament the prior March. With only a couple of seconds remaining, the outcome was still in doubt. Robert Morris’ Greg Junk had a chance to tie the game at 84-84, and, in all likelihood, force overtime. As it turns out, Junk failed to convert with the ball caroming off the iron and onto the floor. As Robert Morris’ Tom Parks remembers, “Phil came up with the ball, put it in, and game over.” The Brooklyn Paramount was stunned and Robert Morris was going dancing. Three decades later, the 1982 ECAC Metro title tilt arguably still ranks as the league’s best, although Darrick Suber may have something to say about that (See March 9).   Click here for more on the 1982 ECAC Metro Championship Game and the Early Days of NEC Hoops

Also on This Date – On March 6, 1987, a ticket to the inaugural NEC Women’s Basketball Championship Game was up for grabs as top-seeded Monmouth, which had enjoyed a first round bye after posting a perfect 16-0 regular season league record, and No. 5 seed St. Francis (NY) clashed at the Jersey Shore. The host Hawks were in control throughout, winning in record fashion by a 92-70 margin. The 92 points are still a NEC Tournament single-game record today, having only been matched once in 2004 by Saint Francis (PA). In terms of single-game individual tournament records, Monmouth’s Sandra Cook, who would go onto win the 1988 NEC Player of the Year award, recorded six blocks, a mark currently tied for third all-time. Monmouth also owns the NEC Tournament record for fewest points allowed, having set the mark yesterday (March 5, 2011) by limiting Quinnipiac to 36 points in a quarterfinal round matchup.

March 5
On March 5, 2001, the improbable happened. In NEC Tournament annals, it’s known as “The Comeback.” Six minutes into the second half, top-seeded St. Francis (NY) was in complete control, holding a 20-point lead over Monmouth in the NEC Men’s Basketball Championship Game in Trenton. Down 56-36 with 13:59 to play, the Hawks shocked the college basketball world by storming back for a 67-64 win and the NEC’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Monmouth took its first lead, 62-61, on a three-pointer by Gerry Crosby and Rahsaan Johnson’s clutch free throws put the Hawks in front for good with 40.7 seconds left to play. Click here for Asbury Park Press writer Tony Graham’s take.

Also on This Date - On March 5, 2001, Long Island defeated Mount St. Mary’s in first women’s championship game since 1993 to not include Saint Francis (PA). The Flash had made seven straight appearances in the NEC Championship Game, winning it all five times, but had failed to qualify for the tournament this particular year. Tony Bozzella’s Blackbirds took full advantage of the Red Flash’s absence by flying through the bracket to the program’s first-ever conference crown.

March 4
On March 4, 2001, Richy Dominguez had a rather routine performance considering the competition. The St. Francis (NY) power forward scored 24 points and ripped down 12 rebounds against Wagner in a Northeast Conference Tournament semifinal game in Trenton. Dominguez averaged 25.7 points per contest in three games against the Seahawks that season, and this time his dominant display lifted the Terriers to their first-ever NEC Championship Game appearance. What no one knew at the time, including Dominguez himself, was that the 6-foot-4 star guard had been playing his best basketball despite having testicular cancer. Diagnosed only weeks after the NEC Tournament, Dominguez eventually made a full recovery and currently resides in New York City with wife and child.

Also on This Date – On March 4, 2000, Saint Francis (PA) senior Jess Zinobile put forth what is still unarguably the top individual performance in NEC Tournament history, and Long Island’s Kim MacMillan wasn’t far behind. Playing on opposite sides of an NEC semifinal matchup, Zinobile and MacMillan combined to score a total of 78 points in what wound up being an 88-76 victory for the Red Flash. Zinobile, a two-time NEC Player of the Year who was part of the NEC Hall of Fame’s inaugural class back in November, scored 46 points, grabbed 16 rebounds, made five steals, and dished out three assists. Meanwhile, MacMillan poured in 32 points and secured 10 rebounds. More impressive than the individual scoring totals was something both Zinobile and MacMillan failed to do – commit a turnover. Despite handling the ball with such frequency over the 40-minute game, neither player finished with a single turnover. On this date in 2000, two players had 78 points, 26 rebounds, seven steals, and not one ball-handling miscue.

March 3
The date was March 3, 1985 and the site was Reitz Arena on the campus of former ECAC Metro member Loyola (MD). Paul Lizzo’s Long Island Blackbirds were aiming for a fourth straight trip to the ECAC Metro Championship Game, but Fairleigh Dickinson and ECAC Metro Coach of the Year Tom Green got in the way. Four of FDU’s five starters scored in double figures, led by 21 points from Damari Ridick, and the Knights upended the defending champion Blackbirds, 73-71. The game featured a number of all-time conference greats starting with LIU’s Carey Scurry who was taken by the Utah Jazz in the second round of the NBA Draft later that spring. Meanwhile, Jamie Latney, who was a freshman at the time and would go onto have one of the best games in NEC postseason history three years later (see 1988 title tilt), scored five points for FDU off the bench. Latney earned all-NEC first team honors in each of the next three seasons. A third NEC legend was wearing stripes that day. Edgar Cartotto, who served as the NEC’s Coordinator of Men’s Basketball Officials for 22 years, was the lead official in the game. Cartotto retired in 2009 as the as the longest-tenured employee in the league’s history. Following its monumental victory over LIU, Fairleigh Dickinson then went onto defeat Loyola, 63-59, to secure the program’s first of four ECAC Metro/Northeast Conference titles.

Also on This Date – On March 3, 2001, Fairleigh Dickinson’s Natallia Marchanka set the NEC Tournament’s single-game scoring record for freshmen women. The 2000-01 NEC All-Rookie selection poured in 33 points, on 11-for-16 shooting, and dished out nine assists in an NEC quarterfinal contest against #2 Quinnipiac. Fairleigh fell, 81-73, but the freshmen record still stands today.

March 2
As the Quinnipiac men gear up for what they hope will be the program’s first-ever NEC Championship run, ‘This Date in NEC Tournament History’ presented by TD Bank takes us back to the Bobcats’ surprising showing during the 2002 postseason. On March 2, 2002, Quinnipiac knocked off No. 3 seed UMBC, 75-72, in an NEC semifinal contest at the Spiro Sports Center in Staten Island, NY. In what was their first-ever trip to the NEC Tournament, the Bobcats, who joined the conference starting in the 1998-99 season, became only the second No. 7 seed in league history to reach the NEC title game. Prior to their comeback win over UMBC, Quinnipiac stunned second-seeded Wagner on Grymes Hill. The Bobcats ultimately fell at Central Connecticut in the 2002 NEC Championship Game, but not before turning the tournament bracket upside down. "We’ve had two great wins and anything can happen at this time of year," said Joe DeSantis, who was Quinnipiac’s head coach at the time and is now an NEC-TV color commentator.

Also on This Date - On March 2, 1998, Fairleigh Dickinson denied Long Island a second consecutive NEC men’s title by downing the Blackbirds, 105-91, in an action-packed Championship Game. The game was played before a standing-room only crowd at the historic Schwarz Athletic Center formerly known as the Brooklyn Paramount.


March 1
With Saint Francis (PA) holding the top seed in this year’s women’s tournament, it’s only fitting to tip off our ’This Date in NEC Tournament History’ series presented by TD Bank by looking back at the birth of the Red Flash dynasty. The daily series, which will run through March 13, opens by commemorating the start of an unprecedented run. On March 1, 1996, Saint Francis (PA) finally got over the hump. The Red Flash had fallen in the NEC title tilt to Mount St. Mary’s in each of the previous two years, but this time the Red Flash left Knott Arena with an 83-75 victory and the program’s first-ever NEC title. While halting the Mount’s hope for a fourth consecutive conference crown, Saint Francis (PA) began a remarkable run of its own. The Flash would go onto win eight more NEC titles over the nine ensuing seasons.

Also on This Date - Only two years prior, the Mount women made for a memorable March 1. On this day in 1994, Mount St. Mary’s, led by the late Bill Sheahan, defeated Saint Francis (PA) in Knott Arena to clinch their second consecutive tournament title and earn the NEC’s first-ever automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Mountaineers, who would go onto to win a third straight tournament crown in 1995, were a No. 14 seed and fell to No. 3 Iowa in the 1994 NCAA First Round. … The Mount men’s program also has a fond memory from the first day of March. On March 1, 1999, the Mount men, and Hall of Fame head coach Jim Phelan, upended Central Connecticut in the NEC Championship Game on Wagner’s campus in the brand-new Spiro Sports Center. The men’s title was Mount’s second of the decade.