After an unfortunate close loss to Guilford in the ODAC tournament, the Maroons Men’s basketball team got an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. The team would travel to Christopher Newport University to play Pfieffer in the Round of 64 of the NCAA D3 “March Madness” tournament. The game was great, with lots of back-and-forth action, although with only a couple seconds left of the game Josh McClary ‘25 was fouled and would get the opportunity to score some crucial potentially game winning points. Although he had missed some shots earlier in the game, he did not miss these two leading to an RC victory. Onto the round of 32!
This next game would be against the Captains of Christopher Newport, who had a home court advantage. Again, Josh McClary delivered the game winner: a floater from about the foul shot line with about 4 seconds on the clock. Roanoke took a time out to discuss their strategy in the last seconds leading to this idea from McClary that very much paid off. CNU had a chance to win it back, but their half court attempt did not work, ultimately leading to a Maroon victory and a ticket to the Sweet 16. This was the first time since 1996 that RC had made it this far in the tournament, which was very exciting for the team and this community. We celebrated by sending the team off on Wednesday afternoon where they would face Catholic University of America on Friday at 4:15PM.
The game started and both teams had very good defense in the first couple minutes until Junior, Marcus Morgan, had a drive to the basket for the first points of the game. It continued to be defense heavy, but Freshman Caleb Franze had a hot hand and scored three after three in one of the biggest moments of his career. Catholic stayed close until a run towards the end of the first half where the Maroons had a 13-point lead. Catholic came back from half-time ready to play, and they certainly did, because they caught up and would eventually send the game to overtime. Catholic did win the game in overtime, but the Maroons are still considered one of the top teams in the 2024-25 season! I hope we have just as successful a season next year, even though we will be missing two seniors. Thank you, Josh McClary and Josh Morse, for your wonderful contributions to Maroon athletics.
Lauren Price
Staff Reporter
