ASHLAND, Va. — The TCNJ men’s basketball team’s memorable season has reached its conclusion.
The Lions bowed out of the NCAA Division III Tournament with a 68-45 setback against host Randolph-Macon on Saturday night in a second-round game.
TCNJ was coming off a dramatic first-round victory over Johns Hopkins in which it took its only lead of the second half on Nick Koch’s game-winning 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds remaining.
Perhaps the physical and emotional toll of that proved too much to overcome one night later against an opponent that comes at you in waves.
Randolph-Macon stifled the Lions with a 3-2 zone and worked to aggressively blitz ballscreens to take the ball out of Koch’s hands. It worked in limiting the senior point guard to six points on 2-of-12 shooting.
With Koch unable to get going, TCNJ got stuck in the mud. It shot 3-of-17 from beyond the arc and just 34% overall (17-of-50).
Matthew Solomon led the Lions (22-7) with 17 points.
Keishawn Pulley Jr. netted 15 points to pace three in double figures for the Yellow Jackets (27-3). Jabril Robinson and Malcolm Hodges had 12 points each.
