Neither team fares well in CIAA Tournament

The CIAA Tournament is a weeklong festival that celebrates friendship, school pride and the beauty of good, old-fashioned round ball.As for the teams of Winston-Salem State University, this year’s tournament was a bitter taste at the end of a long season. The men upped the women this year by calculating two wins to the women’s single loss. The men were able to compile a 14-14 record throughout the season, which if analyzed after considering that they lost eight seniors from last year, was not that bad. They fought through a 54-49 win against Virginia State to make it to quarterfinals. There they met a Virginia Union team that they had beaten twice in the regular season, but proved to be too much come tournament time.The Lady Rams lost their quarterfinal game to an upstart St. Augustine’s squad that rose from the depths of sixth seed. The Lady Rams played the Lady Falcons twice during the season, beating them by a combined margin of 37 points. The Lady Falcons were just too much for a Lady Rams team that had not played a game since Feb. 18. St. Augustine pulled off its second upset of the week winning 61-54.The tournament was filled with other surprises than the women’s team from St. Augustine’s. The first was the NCAA’s decision to reinstate 6-foot-2-inch post player Naomi Mobley of Shaw University after suspending her for infractions before the start of the season. The decision to reinstate Mobley shocked many because the results of the infraction caused Shaw to drop all of its regular season wins, giving them an 0-25 record. As a result of the record change, Shaw moved to a lower seed, which gave them an easier path to the CIAA Tournament championship.The other surprise, if you choose to see it that way, came by the hands of CIAA Player of the Year Patrick Pope. Pope accumulated 41 points in the second half of his team’s, the St. Augustine’s Falcons, game against Virginia Union. In the first half Virginia Union held Pope to only 5 points off of 1-8 shooting. The buzz began in the middle of the second half when Pope began to bring his team back into the game. At that point he was shooting 8-12 from the field and showed no signs of stopping. Pope ended the game shooting 13-29 from the field, and 15-17 from the free throw. He was properly given player of the game honors after leading his team to a one-point loss after trailing at halftime 39-21.Both teams from Winston-Salem State University found themselves looking toward next season at the close of the CIAA Tournament. Improvement is never a given, but the future looks very bright for WSSU basketball.