WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – It hasn’t been a memorable season by a long shot for William & Mary, with wins being very hard to come by. The Tribe has struggled mightily to put it all together, and the record reflects that as they are a team with little room for error. But this team has stayed together and hasn’t stopped working, and that was very evident on Saturday night as they thumped visiting Northeastern 79-54 in a game that wasn’t even that close.
“Just a great win for our guys,” is how head coach Tony Shaver described it. “It was so exciting to see them enjoy the last four or five minutes of a ballgame that way, and I thought we played really well.”
The first half was probably the stuff Shaver dreams of with this team. The Tribe played solid defense and limited the Huskies to one-and-done possessions, then got going offensively. They first got hot from long range, with Matt Rum and Marcus Thornton hitting, and that opened up other opportunities. In the latter part of the half, Thornton and Brandon Britt consistently drove to create opportunities and couldn’t be stopped.
Britt and Thornton, in particular, controlled the game after the early going. Britt went for a season-high 24 points on 9-13 shooting, while Thornton had 14 but probably seemed to have more in the eyes of Northeastern. Both had just two assists, a number that surprised Shaver as he was impressed with their passing. They along with Matt Rum, who had nine rebounds and three assists and continues to evolve away from being just a shooter, had a big night.
“Our guards have not been complete players this season,” said Shaver. “Tonight, Brandon played a really complete basketball game.”
William & Mary is known for its offense because of how they run it, but it was on defense that Saturday night’s game was won. The offense got a boost from it.
“I thought our defense really fueled our offense tonight, and that’s something we’ve been really inconsistent with basically the whole year,” said senior Quinn McDowell.
Shaver said he thought Friday’s practice was terrific, and he’s seen the team continue to do that throughout the season. Ted Sarandis, who called the game for ESPN3, took in the practice and was very impressed as well. The lack of wins has been a challenge, and it hasn’t just been close ones like last season, when the Tribe lost ten games by five points or less. In fact, on Wednesday night, Old Dominion came to Kaplan Arena and beat them 70-51 in a game that wasn’t quite that close.
“It’s been an incredibly painful experience, because you come to the gym and you feel like you’re putting in all this work and all this effort, you’re giving it all you can, and not seeing the results,” said McDowell, a finalist for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award. “Our coaches have done a great job, along with the other two captains, of coming to work every day, and believe me, that’s not an easy thing to do when you get blown out on your home floor.”
William & Mary has a lot of solid intangibles, but injuries and inconsistency have hurt them greatly. McDowell missed a lot of early practice time with a knee injury, and although he has started every game he probably hasn’t been 100 percent all year. Kyle Gaillard and JohnMark Ludwick have been hit by injuries, with Gaillard out all year and Ludwick out until just the past two games. The frontcourt was an area of concern for this team even before the injuries.
The Tribe came into Saturday night’s game shooting below 40 percent from the field and allowing opponents to shoot over 46 percent. Saturday’s numbers at both ends were much better, and it was all made possible by the way this team continues to show the solid intangibles. They kept competing and finally produced a complete game and got something to show for it.
