City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
--

Holy Family will host the East Regional of the NCAA Division II men’s basketball tournament as one of five area teams that found out they were going dancing on Sunday night.

The Tigers (26-5), winners of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) championship, get No. 8 Southern New Hampshire (22-10) in next Saturday’s first round, with six other teams from the northeast portion of the country joining them.

It's the first tournament bid and league championship for head coach R.C. Kehoe in his fifth season and just the second bid in school history, after qualifying with an at-large bid in 2008. The Tigers are also the first CACC program to host a region.

"I thought that we earned it with our play, not just in this last weekend but our play throughout the season, from start to finish," said Kehoe, whose team enters the playoffs having won 14 of its last 15 games. "We played everybody we could play, we challenged ourselves, and hard work paid off. I’m very happy for the university, our kids and the CACC.”

Kehoe has a talented group led by a nine-man senior class, including guard Reggie Charles (16.9 ppg, 6.2 apg, 3.8 rpg), wing Marvin Crawford (14.2 ppg, 6.7 rpg) and big man Isaiah Gans (10.6 ppg, 5.6 rpg).

This is a rematch of a November matchup in New Hampshire, which ended 74-69 in SNHU's favor.

“I think they got it right, I think it’s the best eight teams and it’s a wide-open field," Kehoe said. "Obviously we’re playing a team that beat us, so it should be a pretty interesting matchup Saturday evening.”

They’re one of two CACC teams in the bracket, as Philadelphia University (23-8) is in as the No. 7 seed. Hall of Fame coach Herb Magee's group, the 29th he's lead to the Tournament, is led by senior big man Peter Alexis (19.4 ppg, 9.1 rpg), the CACC Player of the Year who's finishing up a 2000-point, 1000-rebound career. The conference runner-up Rams get No. 2 St. Anselm (21-7) in the first round.

The Hawks, out of the powerhouse NE-10 conference, shoot 42.7 percent from the 3-point arc to power them to 85.2 points per game. One of their featured players is freshman Tim Guers (11.3 ppg), who starred at Germantown Academy as a junior and senior, leading the Patriots to Inter-Ac championships in 2014 and ‘15.

One other location connection in the East regional is on No. 6 St. Thomas Aquinas. The ECC champions for the first time ever feature freshman sixth man Jon Lawton, a Friends' Central grad who's averaging 9.1 ppg and shooting 50 percent from beyond the arc on the season.

Three teams from the PSAC are in the Atlantic region. No. 4 Kutztown (21-6) gets conference rival No. 5 West Chester (23-6) in the first round, while league champion Mercyhurst (21-8) gets the No. 8 bid plays host Wheeling Jesuit in the first round.

Kutztown took both regular-season meetings from West Chester, winning 84-75 on the road in January and 81-77 at home to close out the regular season on Feb. 24. The Golden Bears, making their fourth NCAA Tournament appearance and first since back-to-back trips in 2009 and 2010, are led by PSAC Coach of the Year Bernie Driscoll and Player of the Year Josh Johnson, a 6-8 junior forward out of Norristown (Pa.) who averages 14.8 ppg and 8.6 rpg.

Though the Rams are the lower seed they made it further in the PSAC championship, getting to the final on its home court before falling to the Lakers, 70-67 on Sunday afternoon.