The AU men’s basketball team advanced to the Patriot League Championship game for the first time since the 2008-2009 season after defeating the Holy Cross Crusaders in the Patriot League Semifinals 57-46.
With the win, AU advances to face Boston University. A victory against BU would clinch a Patriot League Championship and a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
Trailing by five with 9:32 in the first half, Holy Cross scored 12 unanswered points. The 12 point outburst saw First-Team All-Patriot League selection Dave Dudzinski notch seven of his 15 first half points. When the half ended, Holy Cross was up 28-22.
“At the half, we were struggling with scoring,” head coach Mike Brennan said. “We have to be able to score and remember to stick with our offense.
Walk-on freshman guard Charlie Jones proved to be the spark the AU men’s basketball team needed to secure a second half comeback.
At the 16:23 mark in the second half, Jones checked in and replace junior forward Kyle Kager.
Momentum appeared to still be with the Crusaders in the second half when Anthony Thompson hit a three at the 16:01 mark to put Holy Cross up 39-29.
From there, Jones began to make his mark.
After grabbing a defensive rebound, Jones made a three pointer at 13:44 to make it a seven-point game. On the next Eagle possession, Jones made a layup, cutting the Holy Cross lead to five.
“I called him the energizer bunny,” junior guard Darius Gardner, who scored 10 points in the game, said of Jones, citing the freshman’s energy level on the court.
The charge from Jones kick-started the Eagle offense in the second half on a 20-2 run, which put the Eagles up 49-41 with 3:16 remaining in the half.
Jones played the remainder of the game and finished with five points, five rebounds, two steals and a block.
Jones was aided by sophomore guard Jesse Reed who had 14 of his 16 total points in the second half.
“We finally got that break, somebody made that first shot,” Reed said about what triggered the offensive surge in the second half. “Once we saw that one go down, it just gave us more confidence to have more go down.”
A defensive transition going from a largely man-to-man based defense to a more zone look in the second half was also critical to the Eagles’ comeback victory. The result of this change was Holy Cross shooting with 28 percent from the field, down from 48 percent in the first half, and Dudzinski scoring just seven more points in the second half.
“We were just in the right place in the right time,” Gardner, who led the Eagles with three steals, said about the defensive switch.
In total, the Eagles capitalized on 20 points off of 12 Holy Cross turnovers, compared to the Crusaders’ eight points on seven Eagle turnovers.
AU will face off against the Terriers in Boston, Mass. March 12 at 7:30 PM.
