Spartans' possible MEAC title in jeopardy after stinging loss

NORFOLK

The Norfolk State Spartans failed to exorcize the demon that has become Delaware State on Wednesday night.

Now they need help if they are to win the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference's regular-season title.

And the Spartans will probably have a nightmare or two about the six-point lead they blew in the game's last three minutes.

They will lament the 10-1 run they allowed the Hornets to make to start overtime.

Delaware State ended up winning 73-63. But from the looks on the Spartans' faces, the Hornets won this game when Tahj Tate rebounded a missed 3-pointer by teammate Casey Walker and banked home the stickback with 1.4 seconds remaining to force the overtime with the game tied at 59.

"I think we were really deflated by that tip-in," Spartans coach Anthony Evans said. "It really got to us."

After the Spartans' Pendarvis Williams missed a 3-point attempt to start overtime, Walker canned a trey at the other end that took any remaining wind out of the Spartans' lungs.

"That tip-in by Tate, it was as if the play happened in slow motion," said Brandon Wheeless, who took the blame for not boxing Tate out. "I can see him going by me, see him going up, see him sticking it back. After that, we played in a daze."

Norfolk State (18-9, 10-3) now trails 9-2 Savannah State.

The Spartans, who beat Savannah State this season, own the tiebreaker over the Tigers. But Delaware State (12-11, 9-3), by virtue of its two-game season sweep of Norfolk State, owns the tiebreaker over the Spartans.

Who's to say what will happen in the season's last two weeks? What's certain for the Spartans, however, is that after a nonconference game against Longwood on Monday night, the Spartans will finish at Bethune-Cookman, Florida A&M and North Carolina A&T.

"We want to win as many as we can in the regular season," said Spartans center Kyle O'Quinn, who finished with 15 points and 12 rebounds. "But at the end of the day, we're not on the bubble looking for an at-large bid to the NCAAs. We've still got to win the tournament to go to the dance.

"What we need to do is get on a roll heading to the tournament."

What could have been a night of smiles - O'Quinn became the school's seventh player to score at least 1,000 points and grab 1,000 rebounds and Wheeless had a career-high 17 points - turned into a downer for the Spartans.

As is usually the case when Norfolk State faces Delaware State, the Hornets kept the Spartans from playing their preferred run-when-they-can style much of the night.

They pinned down O'Quinn, who got off just three shots in the first half and rarely touched the ball at the offensive end.

The Spartans, however, got going with six minutes remaining. Williams hit a mid-range jumper, Wheeless stole an alley-oop pass, then nailed a 3-pointer and Williams followed with a coast-to-coast bucket after O'Quinn's sixth blocked shot for a 49-43 advantage.

The Hornets, however, made their next five shots, including a pair of 3-pointers by Walker, who finished with 16 points, and a pair of pull-up jumpers by Jay Threatt, who had 13 points.

Norfolk State guard Quasim Pugh, who had nailed a 3-pointer with 53 seconds left in regulation, had a chance to make it a 3-point lead with 13 seconds left, but missed the second of two free throws.

The star of the night was Tate, a 6-foot-4 freshman guard who is probably going to be named the MEAC's Newcomer of the Year. He

finished with a game-high 25 points.

"Look, Tahj is the real deal," said Threatt, who handed out seven assists and broke his school's career assist record. "We've been expecting this for a while."

Rich Radford, (757) 446-2463, rich.radford@pilotonline.com