Courtesy Amherst Sports Information

Box Score

AMHERST, Mass. - Trinity College came away with its first NESCAC Men's Basketball title on Sunday afternoon, as the Bantams surpassed Bowdoin 74-55 in the final game of the 2008 NESCAC Men's Basketball Championship. With the win, Trinity (21-6) earns the league's automatic bid to the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

The first eight minutes of the game were a low scoring affair as neither team was shooting above 33 percent, and Trinity held a 10-6 lead. The Bantams extended their advantage to 13-6 on a three-point play from senior center Russ Martin (East Longmeadow, Mass.).

Bowdoin responded with a fast-break and kick out, giving sophomore Mike Hauser (East Williston, N.Y.) a wide open three ball. He knocked down the shot to cut the deficit to 13-11 with 9:36 to play.

At the four minute mark, Trinity opened its lead up to 20-13 on the second three of the game by senior guard Patrick Hasiuk (Enfield, Conn.). Bowdoin cut the margin down to three points before Hasiuk answered once again with another three from the right wing.

Bowdoin’s Andrew Hippert (Worcester, Mass.) had a three at the first-half buzzer rim out, sending the teams to the break with Trinity up 25-21. At the half, Hasiuk was the only player on either team in double-digits with 11 points on 50 percent shooting.

By the 14:27 mark of the second half, Trinity had gone on an 11-4 run and held a 36-25 lead.

In the next two possessions, Bowdoin had a three to cut the lead to a dozen, only to have Hasiuk complete a four-point play to put the Bantams up 48-32.

By the midway point of the second stanza, Trinity held a 20-point lead at 54-34. Throughout the final portion of the game, the Bantams maintained their large lead to cruise toward a convincing win.

The final score registered home at 74-55 to give Trinity the 2008 NESCAC crown. Hasiuk paced the Bantams with 19 points, while Martin, Robert Taylor and Paul Rowe all reached double-digits. Hippert and Jordan Fliegel (Cambridge, Mass.) led the Polar Bears with a combined 28 points in the loss.

2008 NESCAC MEN’S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, Feb. 23 at Higher Seeds
at No. 1 Amherst 86, No. 8 Colby 69
at No. 2 Trinity 69, No. 7 Connecticut College 60
at No. 3 Middlebury 96, No. 6 Williams 59
at No. 4 Bowdoin 83, No. 5 Bates 50

Semifinals - Saturday, March 1 at Amherst
No. 4 Bowdoin 65, at No. 1 Amherst 64
No. 2 Trinity 72, vs. No. 3 Middlebury 63

Championship - Sunday, March 2 at Amherst
No. 2 Trinity 74, vs. No. 4 Bowdoin 55

2008 NESCAC MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, February 23
3:00 p.m. at Higher Seeds
No. 8 at No. 1
No. 7 at No. 2
No. 6 at No. 3
No. 5 at No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, March 1
at Highest Remaining Seed
2:00 p.m./4:00 p.m.

Championship - Sunday, March 2
12:00 p.m.

Format
The top 8 teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Basketball Championship.  First round games will be conducted on Saturday, February 23, 2008 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, March 1 and Sunday, March 2, respectively.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play.  The top four seeds will host quarterfinal games with the number one seed drawing the number 8 seed, the 7th seed will play at the 2nd seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed.  Teams will be re-bracketed with the highest remaining seed after quarterfinal action hosting both the semifinal and final rounds.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Sunday, February 17.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.