Conway, SC (Sports Network) – The Liberty Flames, a team that started the season with eight straight losses, are headed to the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
John Caleb Sanders had 27 points, Davon Marshall scored 20 on 6-of-7 shooting from 3-point range and the Flames topped the Charleston Southern Buccaneers, 87-76, to capture their first Big South Tournament title since 2004.<\/p>\n
Tavares Speaks supplied 18 points, nine rebounds, four assists and two steals for Liberty (15-20), the North Division’s fifth seed.<\/p>\n
The Flames tied the 2008 Coppin State squad for the most losses entering the NCAA tourney.<\/p>\n
Saah Nimley paced five Charleston Southern players in double figures with 18 points. Jeremy Sexton scored 17 and Arlon Harper 14 for the Buccaneers (19-12), the South Division’s top seed.<\/p>\n
A back-and-forth first half ended with Liberty holding a 35-34 lead.<\/p>\n
Following the break, the seesaw battle resumed until the Flames built a 10- point cushion. Consecutive layups by Sanders and Joel Vander Pol made it 58-48 with 10:27 remaining.<\/p>\n
Liberty then scored eight straight points after Charleston Southern closed to within six. Tomasz Gielo hit a layup and followed up a Marshall trey with one of his own with 5:28 to play.<\/p>\n
The Flames made their free throws down the stretch to punch their ticket to the Big Dance. Fifteen of Liberty’s last 17 points came from the foul line.<\/p>\n
Game Notes<\/p>\n
Liberty shot 57.7 percent in the second half … Charleston Southern lost despite committing only four turnovers … Mathiang Muo had 12 points and Sheldon Strickland contributed 10 points for the Buccaneers … The lead changed hands eight times in the first half.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Conway, SC (Sports Network) – The Liberty Flames, a team that started the season with eight straight losses, are headed to the NCAA Tournament. John Caleb Sanders had 27 points, Davon Marshall scored 20 on 6-of-7 shooting from 3-point range and the Flames topped the Charleston Southern Buccaneers, 87-76, to capture their first Big South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ncaa-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}