For Spartan seniors, a fond farewell to the home crowd

NORFOLK

Norfolk State needed a game. The Spartans had a 10-day gap in their conference schedule, and didn't want a long layoff heading into a three-game road swing that will decide the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference regular season title.

Longwood needed a game, too, because, well, the Lancers always need one. Next year, Longwood enters the safe harbor of the Big South Conference. For now they're a team without a country, forced to schedule games where and when they can.

So the Spartans and Lancers got together Monday night, in a unlikely late February matchup that felt a bit like a BracketBusters leftover, in front of 1,725 at Echols Hall.

Admittedly pressing on Senior Night, the Spartans missed 13 of 14 3-pointers in the first half. The first of the second half fell, however, sparking an 18-0 run that led to a 66-52 NSU win.

Guard Chris McEachin, who had gone 0 for 5 from beyond the arc in the first half, dropped in his first 3 of the second. The Spartans (19-9) held Longwood scoreless for 5-1/2 minutes.

"The second half we got a little more in rhythm," said forward Marcos Tamares, who had 16 of his 20 points in the second half. "Chris was able to knock some shots down. I was able to knock some shots down. We just fell into a groove."

McEachin also scored 16 in the second half, and finished with a game-high 21. He did most of his damage from the perimeter. The 6-foot-7 Tamares did most of his in the paint, finding gaps in Longwood's 2-3 zone.

With just seven players in uniform, the Lancers had little choice to but to sit in that zone, unable to risk foul trouble.

Norfolk State looked content to swing the ball around the perimeter in the first half, launching long jumpers that missed the mark.

"We were a little tense," coach Anthony Evans said. "We took a lot of the shots that we normally do, but we weren't hitting them."

NSU honored five seniors playing in their final home game, and the Spartans seemed eager to win the game all at once. Longwood (9-18) led 29-26 after a first half in which NSU shot just 27 percent and was out-rebounded by five, 24-19.

McEachin's 3 to open the second half jarred something loose. NSU began finding the gaps in the middle of the zone, with Tamares flashing into the paint for short jumpers on feeds from point guard Jamel Fuentes.

"He kept telling me the middle was wide open, and I got some shots to drop," Tamares said.

Tamares was open in part because of the attention paid to NSU big man Kyle O'Quinn. Surrounded most of the night, he managed six points on 3 of 8 shooting but grabbed 16 rebounds, 11 in the second half.

As the lone four-year player among NSU's seniors, O'Quinn, the only player in the school's Division I era with 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds, received the loudest ovation prior to the game. Like McEachin and Tamares, also seniors, he said he wasn't about to lose on Senior Night.

"I might shed a tear later," he said. "I love this university. I played as a freshman, and it's been a long four years, but I love this university."

Notes: O'Quinn has been named one of 25 finalists for the 2012 Lou Henson Award, given annually to the national Mid-Major Player of the Year. Henson, who retired in 2005, won 779 games and is the winningest coach at Illinois and New Mexico State....Sophomore guard Pendarvis Williams did not play because of flu-like symptoms.