No team wants to back its way into the Mountain East basketball tournament. Nor any tournament for that matter.
But that’s just where Wheeling University finds itself tonight when the Cardinals, the No. 10 seed, tip-off against No. 7 Glenville State tonight at 6 p.m.
The Cardinals struggled through the 2022-23 season, record-wise, and the regular season finale loss to rival West Liberty left head coach Chris Richardson’s club with a 6-22 record, including 4-18 in the conference.
Only the Top 10 teams qualify for the tourney, and the Cards conference record matched that of Frostburg State, which sported a better overall record at 8-20. The main difference, Wheeling bested Frostburg State during both regular season meetings and earned the final spot in the tourney, which got underway earlier today at Wesbanco Arena.
It’s not the ideal way to qualify, but Richardson and his players will certainly take it.
“We talked about it (Monday) that, at the start of the season,; if you said are you going to be the 10th seed, you’d say no. That’s not your goal,” Richardson said. “But when you start off 0-9 in MEC play, you’ll take getting into the tournament at No. 10.
“It’s not exactly the way we drew it up, but our goal is still to win the MEC championship, and like the other (nine) teams, we still have that opportunity.”
The season started with two narrow losses to PSAC opponents Cal (Pa.) and Shepherd before Wheeling secured its first win at home against D’Youville College.
That came on November 15. The next win? More than a month later against Division III Franciscan University on December 30. The first MEC win came in the first matchup with Frostburg on January 14.
It’s not that Wheeling played poorly. In those 22 losses, the margin of defeat was nine points or less 16 times, with 10 of those the Cardinals keeping within five.
They played. They competed. They just had trouble closing out games. It could lead to frustration and disappointment in the lockerroom, but Richardson credits his team’s mental makeup and comraderie for persevering through the losing.
“It’s difficult,” Richardson said. “It takes a group of young men with special character to get through that, show up, and continue to work hard and stay together.
“That’s what they’ve done. They are a tight-knit group and by far has the best chemistry of any team I’ve coached. It carried us through some really tough nights when the ball didn’t bounce our way.”
A Promising Win
Wheeling didn’t have to wait its long for its second conference win which turned out to be its unquestioned biggest win of the season.
Rival West Liberty invaded the McDonough Center and came out firing, totaling 52 first half points. Wheeling, however, was dialed in and shot 60 percent from the field in the first half (21-35) to keep pace and lead by two at the half en route to a cherished 114-107 victory.
Winning the Battle of Wheeling is always a big night, but given the season’s struggles, it meant all the more, as well as proving to the Cardinals just what they were capable of.
Senior John Korte had a monster night vs. the ’Toppers, erupting for a game-high 40 points. Senior and former Wheeling Central product Brent Price backed him with 24 and Marcus Johnson totaled 21 as three Cards eclipsed the 20-point mark.
Another former Maroon Knight, freshman Ryan Reasbeck, wasn’t far behind with 17 points.
“That win was important for us for a lot of reasons,” Richardson said. “We needed a win. It had been a few games and, No. 2, it shows your players, especially with as many young guys as we have that you’re always preaching about how they are capable of playing.
“You see how close you are, and that win drove the point home and validated the process, so to speak.
“It gave us a lot of confidence.”
The team needed it.
After losing a few seniors, headlined by multiple all-conference selection Jordan Reid, the team needed a bit of a new identity, or at minimum, someone to step into the “go-to-guy” position in big moments.
Korte, Johnson and Price have stepped in and filled that roll. The former was recently named first team all-MEC after averaging 19.6 points per game, good for third in the MEC, the first WU player named to the first team since 2018.
Johnson averaged 17.9 during the regular season, while Price added 13.8 and 6.1 rebounds.
“It was interesting because we basically had a new team, with nine freshman, a handful of sophomores, plus John and Brent have been here and played a lot of minutes,” Richardson said. “But now they had to play much larger roles, and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing.
“They’ve really embraced their rolls.”
Now it’s time to see if the Cards can repeat history.
Last season, Wheeling faced, and defeated, Glenville in the first round of the MEC tournament before falling to West Liberty in the next round.
Should the Cardinals win tonight, they’d advance to face No. 2 Fairmont State on Friday at noon.
The Pioneers bested Wheeling twice this season, but the second game was a 98-95 verdict that the Cardinals were right with Glenville throughout.
Top-Ranked Hilltoppers
West Liberty again enters the MEC tournament with a No. 1 ranked after winning the regular season crown behind their annually strong performance.
This season’s Hilltoppers were led by junior Bryce Butler, who earned first team all-MEC honors as well as being named the conference’s player of the year.
He was joined by teammates Malik McKinney and Christian Montague, who were named to the second team.
Head coach Ben Howlett’s team waits to find out its opponent for Friday’s quarterfinal round. The Hilltoppers will play the winner of tonight’s night cap between No. 8 Concord and No. 9 Alderson Broaddus.
West Liberty finished the regular season 25-3, with its only conference losses being to Wheeling and Fairmont State along with the 91-83 loss to Lubbock Christian.
The Hilltoppers were most recently ranked No. 5 in the Division II national poll, with Nova Southeastern earning the top spot with 14 of the 16 first-place votes. No. 2 Northwest Missouri State snagged the other two. Indiana (Pa.) and Point Loma rounded out the top five.
