Point Park may soon be an NCAA Division II athletics institution.
Although the Downtown university’s upward move in classification away from the NAIA has yet to be finalized, Pioneers men’s basketball coach Kevin Reynolds said his team was likely punished for it.
Point Park received a No. 8 seed when the NAIA revealed its 64-team men’s basketball tournament bracket Thursday night. The Pioneers (29-2) will travel for a first-round game in the Cramer Quadrant of the bracket against No. 9 seed Texas College (22-8) in Henderson, Tenn., March 15.
“We felt like our record is better than an eight seed,” said Reynolds, whose team won the River States Conference regular-season and tournament championships for the first time in school history. “I think our numbers show that as well. I think we’re more deserving of a higher seed but that’s what the committee rated us, so I guess the old Bill Parcells saying, ‘You are what your record says you are.’ I guess your seed is what your seed is, correct?
“We are going to have to beat good teams to advance in the tournament,” he added. “So, we’re just going to have to play the higher-rated teams quicker than we had imagined.”
Point Park earned an automatic bid to the NAIA tournament by finishing atop the River States Conference regular-season points system standings. The Pioneers will be making their sixth all-time appearance in the NAIA national tournament, and first in 17 years.
If Point Park is able to advance to the second round, it will face the winner of a first-round game between site host and No. 1 seed Freed-Hardeman (26-4) and No. 16 seed Loyola New Orleans (14-17).
The second round of the tournament will be played March 16.
The winner of each quadrant will advance to play at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo., which will host the Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four and national championship game from March 21-26.
“Everybody knows why we got the seed,” Reynolds said. “We’re leaving NAIA, and the funny thing is, we’re not even sure we’re leaving NAIA. We don’t know that until Aug. 1. It’s a really unique situation. I can see both sides of it from NAIA’s side and from our administration’s side. We are kind of in the middle of it.”
Point Park announced in January it initiated a move to begin competing at the Division II level, which would be finalized in July — in time for the 2024 fall sports season to begin — pending approval by the NCAA.
If the move is approved, Pioneers men’s and women’s teams will compete in the Mountain East Conference, which currently has 11 member schools in West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland.
Reynolds said his team should use its tournament seeding as motivation.
“That only works if you win, right,” he said. “It sounds like sour grapes if you don’t win and then you look foolish if you complain about your seed and then you don’t win. We’re not going to complain. It’s a lot better than last year.”
A season ago, the Pioneers fell just short of winning conference regular-season or tournament titles while also failing to receive an NAIA national tournament at-large bid in Reynolds’ first season leading the program.
“We watched it and didn’t hear our name called and we were 23-7,” he said. “That was a lot worse. We’re going to look at the perspective of it. This year is way, way better than last year. That’s for certain.
“Regardless of our seed, we are going to have to win six games to win a national championship.”
Point Park’s tournament run will begin against Texas College, which reached the semifinals of Red River Athletics Conference. The Pioneers could then face Freed-Hardeman, the Mid-South Conference tournament champion, or Loyola New Orleans – the champion of the Southern States Athletic Conference.
Reynolds said in the days leading up to his program’s first national tournament appearance in nearly two decades, the Pioneers will focus on defeating Texas College.
Guard Najee Jones leads the Steers with a team-high 14.5 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, while forward Qyrique Dabon averages 11.6 points per game and shoots a team-high 56.6% from the field.
“Our assistant coach John Coakley, he played in the same league and coached in that league, which gives us a nice advantage for us because, obviously, he knows the way they play and their style,” Reynolds said. “As soon as we get done with all the logistical stuff here tonight, we are going to dig down and take a good look at them. It’s nice to have him already with a good knowledge. We are going to be asking John a lot of questions tonight as a staff.”
Sensational freshman
New Jersey Institute of Technology guard Tariq Francis — a Pittsburgh native who won a City League title with Obama Academy in 2020 before transferring to First Love Christian Academy in Washington County for his final three years of high school – was named the America East Conference Rookie of the Year Thursday.
Francis was named conference freshman of the week eight times in his first NCAA Division I season. He led all America East freshmen, and finished ninth overall, in scoring with an average of 14.8 points per game.
“Once we got into conference play, he really took his game to another level,” said first-year NJIT coach Grant Billmeier. “I was kind of looking around, looking at the different freshmen in the league, there’s some really good freshmen in the league, but I thought he was playing at a level above anyone else in the conference.”
The 6-foot, 180-pound guard averaged 18.7 points per game in conference play and eclipsed the 20-point plateau eight times, which included a career-high 31 points to lead NJIT to an upset of Vermont — its only America East loss of the season.
“He spent a lot of time with our assistant coach RaShawn Stores and he really shot the ball well,” Billmeier said. “The way today’s game is played, you’ve got to be able to shoot the basketball from the 3. That’s something that he did at a really high level. He shot the ball at a really high percentage.”
Strong off the bench
Latrobe native Bryce Butler made the most of his first Division I campaign as the graduate student guard was named the Colonial Athletic Association Sixth Man of the Year Thursday.
The 6-foot-5 Butler averaged 8.3 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game after transferring from Division II West Liberty last April.
Butler averaged 20.6 minutes per game to lead Charleston’s second unit, which ranks eighth in the nation in bench points per game.
A season ago, Butler led all Division II players with 829 points. He averaged 22.4 points per game, good for 13th in the country, to go along with his 7.6 rebounds per game and .433 shooting percentage from beyond the 3-point arc.
Butler helped lead West Liberty to its second NCAA Division II national championship game appearance in school history.
Strong contributions early
Villanova guard Maddie Webber, a South Fayette graduate and Bridgeville native, was named to the Big East Conference All-Freshman team.
A 5-foot-11 freshman, Webber started nine of the Wildcats’ 27 games she played in this season. She averaged 7.9 points, 2.7 rebounds and 24.8 minutes per game.
Webber scored in double figures on 11 occasions, including a career-high 20 points against Providence.
No. 4 seed Villanova will open the Big East tournament with a game against No. 5 seed Marquette at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.
A three-year starter and two-time all-state selection at South Fayette, Webber led the Lions to consecutive WPIAL Class 5A championships and the first appearance in the PIAA title game in school history. She was the 2022-23 Pittsburgh Union Progress Player of the Year.
Fun in the sun
Monroeville native and Oakland Catholic graduate Alexa Washington was named to the Division I Atlantic Sun Conference All-Freshmen team following her first campaign at North Florida.
Washington averaged 6.7 points per game and appeared in every contest for the Ospreys. She scored in double figures eight times and shot 32.3% from 3-point range with 42 3-pointers made.
The 5-foot-5 guard is the only North Florida player in school history to be named ASUN Freshman of the Week multiple times.
John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.