Raining Threes and Water: Liberty Wins the Conference USA Title
Liberty wins the CUSA Championship in a dominant performance after a bizarre rain delay. Can the Flames make a deep NCAA Tournament run?
The Conference USA crowned their champions, the Liberty Flames, in Huntsville, Alabama, but it wasn’t without some dramatics. On a day of concern about extreme weather, just moments before tipoff Jacksonville State Head Coach Ray Harper spotted something unusual…water on the court.
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As the referee carried the ball out for tipoff, Ray Harper grabbed an official’s attention. It appeared there was water on the court. Several towels were brought over, but each time it was wiped up, more appeared. We’d already been through warmups with no questioning, but now, the Von Braun Center staff was on the court examining.
The venue itself has quite high ceilings so I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but directly above where the water was sitting on the court was tarps in the ceiling. Apparently, this had already been an issue during the day, but with Huntsville getting buckets of water poured in from the multiple rounds of storms, the two tarps weren’t enough.
The players were pulled off the court. The bands walked back to the locker room. The cheerleaders found some seats. We were in for a long haul. At one point, Ray Harper came out behind me and mentioned that the game might get delayed till Sunday morning. I figured that’d be difficult with scheduling for TV and with Sunday being…well Selection Sunday. However, after a little over an hour, the PA came over the stadium and announced the teams would warm up for ten minutes and then we’d have tipoff.
A rain delay in basketball. You have to love March.
Once we tipped off, Jacksonville State looked strong early. The Gamecocks started off on a quick 8-2 run, but it appeared the Colin Porter wasn’t going to go down easy. Porter had a quick seven points at the 11:23 mark in the first half as the Flames took their first lead of the game at 18-16. Jaron Pierre Jr. answered for the Gamecocks with a huge three to retake the lead.
In a game where we already had actual rain on the court, Liberty started to rain in the threes. Kaden Metheny bought the flames lead up to 26-18, followed by a three from Zander Yates to force a Jacksonville State timeout with 7:25 to go up 29-18.
The first half ended on a huge Jacksonville State run. Jaron Pierre Jr. put the Gamecocks on his back and led a 15-4 run, pulling them back within four at halftime as they were down 37-33. He finished the first half with a team high of 16 points.
Following a halftime show where we saw Cocky twerk at half-court, Liberty stepped on the gas and never let up. At the 12 minute mark in the second half, Liberty had outscored Jacksonville State 21-10. Colin Porter was putting on a masterclass performance. He controlled every aspect of the game. He would drive to the paint, kick it back out to either Kaden Metheny or Taelon Peter and it seemed like they had wide open shots every time. The Flames were 11-15 from deep, with Metheny and Peter going 7-9 combined.
Outside of Porter stepping up, the Flames defense completely smother Jaron Pierre Jr. in the second half and the Jacksonville State offense looked disoriented. He didn’t score until the 3:28 mark when he finally was able to get to the free throw line.
Jacksonville State didn’t do themselves any favors as they shot just 13-25 from the free throw line, while limiting Liberty to just nine free throw attempts. Liberty simply picked their defense apart and shot lights out. The Flames finished shooting 60% overall and 60% from 3pt (12-20) while dishing out 18 assists, nine of which came from Porter.
Kaden Metheny had 21 points as he shot 5-10 from 3pt and Taelon Peter was 3-3 and 7-7 from the field. However, in my opinion Colin Porter was the player of the game. He finished shooting 5-7 and 3-3 from beyond the arc, but he facilitated the entire offense for the flames. I was blown away from his performance.
How will the Flames fare in the NCAA Tournament? I believe the Flames will be called as a 12-seed on Selection Sunday and they are a team that any five-seed should be terrified to see. Their one downfall in my opinion is their size. In the Kennesaw State game, Liberty was exposed as the Owls was able to match up with strong guard play, but a hot stretch from Kaden Metheny lifted them over the Owls. They’ll have to do the same thing in the NCAA Tournament. The Flames are a prolific shooting team and as long as they can get hot and let Porter run the offense, the Flames could be a sneaky Sweet 16 pick as we all know the 12-seeds love to upset in March.
Thank you all for following along over the last four days. I had a blast covering the Conference USA Tournament, and now we move onto the Big Dance!