EVANSVILLE, Ind. \u2013 West Liberty All-American Bryce Butler poured in a game-high 32 points here Saturday but it wasn’t enough as unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Nova Southeastern held off the No. 5 Hilltoppers, 111-101, in a record-setting NCAA Division II national championship game at the Ford Center.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, I’m extremely disappointed with the loss,” head coach Ben Howlett said, “but I’m incredibly proud of this team. A lot of things didn’t go our way today but they never quit and absolutely played to the final horn.”<\/p>\n
The hot-shooting Sharks (36-0) used an early second-half surge to open up a double-digit lead and appeared in total control after a short jumper from Kobe Rodgers gave Nova Southeastern its largest lead of the game, 98-81, with less than six minutes to play.<\/p>\n
Butler, who scored 24 of his 32 points in the second half, and his West Liberty (33-4) teammates weren’t ready to run up the white flag. The 6-5 junior tipped in a WLU miss and followed that up with a coast-to-coast rim run in a 16-second span to send the Hilltoppers on the comeback trail.<\/p>\n
Nova Southeastern point guard Dallas Graziani tried to stop the bleeding with a 3-point bomb, restoring a 16-point margin at 101-85 but a second-chance 3-pointer from Zach Rasile keyed an 8-0 West Liberty run, capped by a driving layup from Rasile that trimmed the margin to 101-93 with just under three minutes to play.<\/p>\n
The Hilltoppers continued to chip away at the deficit but soon found themselves running out of time. A Butler bonus bomb made it a two-possession game, 106-101, with 29 seconds left but the Sharks went 5-for-6 from the charity stripe the rest of the way to close out the win.<\/p>\n
“We got off to a bad start and did some things that are pretty uncharacteristic of us in the first few minutes so we spent most of the first half digging ourselves out of a hole,” Howlett said. “We had cut (the lead) down to four points but they hit a three just ahead of the horn to go up seven (55-48) at the half and I thought that gave them a big boost.”<\/p>\n
West Liberty also found itself battling foul problems for the second straight game in Evansville. Sophomore forward Ben Sarson was whistled for what was ruled a “Flagrant 2” foul, which carries an automatic ejection just two minutes into the second half. Senior guard Malik McKinney picked up his fifth foul on a charging call with 9:21 to play, leaving WLU a bit short-handed down the stretch.<\/p>\n
An NCAA Division II Elite Eight championship game record 52 personal fouls were whistled during the 40-minute contest, resulting in a record combined 65 free throw attempts. Nova Southeastern converted 29-of-39 charity tosses while the Hilltoppers went 19-of-26 from the stripe.<\/p>\n
“Nova Southeastern is a very good basketball team,” Howlett said. “They have a lot of guys who can put the ball in the basket. The difference in the game today was we just couldn’t get enough (defensive) stops when we needed them.”<\/p>\n
Butler hit 11-of-19 shots from the floor, including 3-of-6 from the 3-point arc, and went 7-of-14 from the foul line, finishing with 32 points and 9 rebounds \u2013 both game-highs. Christian Montague had another strong game for WLU with 19 points, including five 3-pointers. Rasile and Steve Cannady added 11 points each while Chaz Hinds rounded out the Hilltoppers’ double-figure scorers with 10 points.<\/p>\n
The Sharks got 31 points and 8 rebounds from former Hilltopper Will Yoakum while All-American R.J. Sunahara added 28 points and 9 boards before fouling out. Graziani also impressed with 24 points and a game-high 9 assists. Yoakum, Sunahara and Graziani were named to the Elite Eight All-Tournament Team along with Butler and Joel Scott of Black Hills State.<\/p>\n
“We came to Evansville looking for a national championship,” Howlett said. “It didn’t happen for us this year but after coming this close, it’s ignited a fire in me and our players. We’ll be back.”<\/p>\n
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP NOTEBOOK<\/b><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 x Butler passed current Chaminade head coach Eric Bovaird for 10th place on WLU’s scoring list on Saturday. The 6-5 junior now has 1,913 career points<\/p>\n
x West Liberty set an Elite Eight championship game record with 16 3-point field goals<\/p>\n
x Nova Southeastern’s 111 points are the most ever scored in an Elite Eight championship game<\/p>\n
x West Liberty’s 101 points are the second-most ever scored in an Elite Eight championship game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EVANSVILLE, Ind. \u2013 West Liberty All-American Bryce Butler poured in a game-high 32 points here Saturday but it wasn’t enough as unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Nova Southeastern held off the No. 5 Hilltoppers, 111-101, in a record-setting NCAA Division II national championship game at the Ford Center. “Obviously, I’m extremely disappointed with the loss,” head […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":21234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college"],"yoast_head":"\n