Charleston Wins the Coastal Athletic Association Conference Championship in Overtime
If you are a college basketball fan it is the best time of the year for you as March Madness nears closer and closer with each team that wins their conference and receives an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Last night, it was the Charleston Cougars who received an automatic bid to this year's NCAA tournament as they defeated the Stony Brook Seawolves 82-79 in overtime in the Coastal Athletic Association Conference Championship in the Entertainment and Sports Arena in Washington, D.C. Throughout the entirety of the 2023-2024 college basketball season, the Cougars have been the best team in the CAA as they have put together a total record of 27-7, 15-3 in conference play, and now have a resume that not only includes CAA Regular Season Champions but also CAA Conference Champions.
This CAA Conference Championship game was back and forth the whole first half as neither team was able to build much of a commanding lead and therefore the Seawolves went into the locker up 40-35 on the CAA Regular Season Champions. However, once both squads came out of the locker room Charleston would soon take the lead as they outscored Stony Brook 25-16 in the first ten minutes of the half to put themselves up 60-56 with ten minutes left in regulation. A made layup by junior Charleston guard Ben Burnham would put the Cougars up by nine points, 70-61, with five and a half minutes left in the game. Both teams would then trade threes as graduate Stony Brook guard Aaron Clarke would make a three and Burnham made a three for the Cougars to make the score of the game 73-64 with four minutes and fifty-four seconds of the game still on the line.
The last seven points of the game would be scored by the Seawolves as they tied this one up on a made layup by Clarke to send the game into overtime. Unfortunately for the Seawolves though their great comeback in the second half would not continue into the extra period as Charleston outscored them 9-6 in overtime to win this one. In one of the best conference championship games we have seen so far in 2024, Stony Brook was led by graduate guard Tyler Stephenson-Moore with 26 points and Charleston was led by junior guard Reyne Smith with 23 points. While the Cougars won the CAA Conference Championship and went on to lose in the first round of the NCAA tournament to the future 2023 NCAA tournament runner-up San Diego State Aztecs by six points last year, many would argue Charleston would have won the first round last year if they had just faced off against a team that wasn’t one of the best in the country in the Aztecs. Charleston will likely be a four seed this year when they get the official tournament news on Sunday and there is no doubt that they will be looking to complete their mission and get the job done this year.
