The college basketball postseason begins this weekend for several area teams with strong contention for conference titles and aspirations to compete for national titles. While the University of North Carolina Wilmington men’s basketball team repeats as regular season champions in the Colonial Athletic Association, both the Cape Fear Community College men’s and women’s teams took their Region 10 conference regular season titles.
No team goes into the postseason with a stronger record than the CFCC women’s team, which is riding a 23 game winning streak, finished conference play undefeated and is the ninth-ranked team nationally for second division junior colleges. The 23-1 Sea Devils open their conference tournament on Friday, March 4 in Bolivia, North Carolina. After winning the regular season title for Region 10’s Division 1, the 23-7 CFCC men’s team will start conference tournament play on Friday in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
After grabbing a share of the CAA conference title, UNCW won’t start tournament play in Baltimore, Maryland, until Saturday, when it goes into the tournament as the conference’s second-seeded team. The Seahawks will face the winner of Friday’s matchup between seventh-seeded Charleston and tenth-seeded Delaware.
This is the second year in a row that UNCW has split a share of the CAA title. And similar to last year, when the Seahawks split the title with three other teams, there is a crowd at the top of the conference standings.
UNCW lost a chance to be the outright CAA tournament regular-season champs when it couldn’t hold onto its lead over the conference’s top-team Hofstra in last Thursday’s matchup at Trask Coliseum. In the late-season conference battle of top teams, the Seahawks jumped out to a 16 point halftime lead over Hofstra, but the Pride mounted a late comeback to clip UNCW 70-69 in front of a raucous, then stunned, crowd.
UNCW then closed the season with a 74-68 home win over Towson to secure a 14-4 conference record and tie with Hofstra for the conference title. On senior day, forward Dylan Sherwood scored 14 points and guard Craig Ponder added 7 points in their last performance before the home fans. Walk-on senior forward Kevin Hickson was also honored as part of the festivities.
Though UNCW and Hofstra split the regular season matchups and put together 14-4 records, the Pride won the tournament’s top seed due to a better winning percentage against teams lower in the standings. The CAA tournament will feature a competitive field, as three teams tied for third place in the CAA with an 11-7 record.
The UNCW women’s basketball team took a step back this season from its improvements in the 2014-15 season. After posting a 14-16 record last year and earning a fifth-seed in the CAA tournament, this season’s Seahawks are shorthanded and struggling to a 7-21 record and tie for last place on the conference standings, with the season’s final regular-season game coming on the road at Charleston on Wednesday. The Seahawks hold a tiebreaker over Towson for ninth seed in the conference tournament, which starts Wednesday, March 9 in Upper Marlboro, Maryland
In another local basketball note, the season ended for the Hoggard High School girls basketball team on Feb. 25 when it fell at home to Heritage-Wake Forest 45-44 in the second-round of the state 4A playoffs.
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