Box Score


NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Long after the buzzer had sounded and the nets had been cut down, senior Jonathan Rumley and his Averett teammates were still walking around the gym soaking it all up.

Averett came from behind to defeat Christopher Newport University 70-63 in the USA South Conference Tournament championship game on Saturday at the Freeman Center. In the process, the Cougars earn their third straight trip to the NCAA Tournament.

"Honestly, it's incredible and really hard to put into words how much it means to all of us in this basketball program," Averett coach Jimmy Allen said. "Our guys have worked so hard for this and it's humbling."

Averett (20-8) has won three consecutive USA South Conference Tournament titles after falling to CNU in the 2006 championship. The Cougars' senior class, who were freshmen that season, didn't want that to happen again during their final season.

Despite trailing for the entire first half, Averett stayed within striking distance. Five minutes into the second half, the Cougars made their push. Rumley, who was named the tournament MVP for the second year in a row, made a pair of layups to cut Christopher Newport's lead down to five. He followed that with a 3-pointer to trim the deficit to 47-45 with 12:44 remaining.

The Captains (18-9) held the Cougars off temporarily, but Averett finally broke through to take its first lead of the game with 8:29 to play. Senior Ryan Frazier, who until that point was 1-for-9 from beyond the arc, drained a 3-pointer to put Averett ahead 53-51.

The teams traded the lead several times, but Averett made several defensive stops and scored on the other end. With only a 60-58 lead, Averett finally got the cushion it was seeking on another key play from Frazier. With 1:34 to go, Frazier drove down the left side of the lane and got fouled while making a layup. He made the free throw put the Cougars ahead by five. 

Although Christopher Newport cut the deficit to three with 14.3 seconds left, Rumley put the game away by hitting all four of his free throws in the final 13.6 seconds to seal the victory on the Captains' home court. 

Rumley scored seven of his game-high 19 points on free throws over the final four minutes.

"We just willed and we worked extremely hard," Rumley said. "That's what got us through, because it wasn't our shooting."

The Cougars struggled offensively most of the game. They shot just 37.5 percent from the floor and were 9-for-38 from 3-point range. And at times, even the easiest of shots wouldn't fall.

"We just kept battling on the defensive end," Rumley added. "We got stops when we needed them and got rebounds, because we weren't shooting that well."

CNU, which shared the regular-season title with Averett, jumped on the Cougars early. With Averett struggling on offense, the Captains roared out to a 15-4 lead less than seven minutes into the game. But Averett stayed within single digits for most of the first half after trimming the Captains' lead to 39-34 at the break.

"I thought it was real important for us to weather the storm a little bit and hang in there," Allen said. "I didn't think we were playing great, but I thought we were played hard."

Joining Rumley on the all-tournament team was freshman Kenny Hart, who scored nine points and grabbed seven rebounds, along with CNU's Davon Barton and Michael Green and Shenandoah's Kevin Kline.

Theo Baker led the Captains with 14 points, while Barton and Green chipped in with 12 points each.

Averett senior Damien Brown came off the bench to score 10 points and pull down nine boards. Frazier added nine points.

Averett will find out who and where it will be playing in the NCAA Tournament on Monday. Until then, the Cougars will be enjoying their third conference tournament championship ring in as many years.

"To win today's game the way we did, I'm just so proud of our guys," Allen said. "We just didn't have a lot of things go our way."