Virginia Wesleyan’s men’s basketball team faces a nervous few days to wonder whether its season is over.
The Marlins quickly were bounced from the Old Dominion Athletic Conference Tournament on Wednesday night, losing 74-61 to Guilford at TowneBank Arena in an outcome that was in little doubt from the outset.
Both teams were 12-4 in the conference regular season; the Marlins were seeded fourth and had home-court advantage because they owned the head-to-head tiebreaker over Guilford by beating them 69-50 on Jan. 15 in North Carolina. But the fifth-seeded Quakers, the only team from outside Virginia in the ODAC, showed why they were NCAA Division III semifinalists a year ago.
Guilford (20-6) went ahead 8-0 as VWU (19-7) went almost five minutes without a point. The Quakers’ leads included 20-8, 40-17 at halftime and 48-22 with 16:58 on the clock.
Omari DeVeaux led VWU with 16 points, hitting 4 of 9 3-point tries. Amari Moorer had seven points and eight rebounds, and Khai Seargeant had nine points.
Guilford shot 50% to the Marlins’ 38.9% and outrebounded them 38-29.
Luke Proctor scored 19 points, Nick Farrar 15 and Caleb Farrish 10 for Guilford, which helped its NCAA chances and earned a ticket to Salem Civic Center to face top-seeded Randolph-Macon in a semifinal at 2 p.m. Saturday. The Yellow Jackets are ranked fifth nationally by d3hoops.com.
The 4:30 p.m. Saturday semifinal will pit seventh-seeded Lynchburg against third-seeded Roanoke. Lynchburg stunned second-seeded Hampden-Sydney 72-66 in the Tigers’ arena Wednesday, though H-SC — ranked seventh nationally — is certain to get an at-large berth.
The Marlins can take solace in this: They gained an at-large berth last season with similar credentials, finishing 19-9 with a 9-7 regular-season ODAC mark and a semifinal appearance — ironically, beating Guilford in a quarterfinal. Swarthmore ousted them in the NCAA first round.
Regardless, the Marlins will be anxious before 1 p.m. Monday, when the field is revealed on an NCAA.com show. There are 21 at-large berths to be filled for the bracket of 64, and one will go to eighth-ranked Christopher Newport since the Coast-To-Coast Athletic Conference does not provide an automatic bid.
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