Jim Crutchfield instituted the fast-paced, pressure-packed style of play, which over the past two decades, has become the signature of the West Liberty men’s basketball program on both ends of the court.
On Saturday, it came back to bite the Hilltoppers.
Crutchfield, who brought West Liberty to national prominence in his 13 seasons as coach of the Hilltoppers, guided top-seeded Nova Southeastern to its first NCAA Division II national championship at Ford Center in Evansville, Ind.
The Sharks used balance scoring and finished off second-seeded West Liberty at the free-throw line to secure a 111-101 victory, which set the NCAA record at any level for the highest scoring national championship game.
In his sixth season at Nova Southeastern, Crutchfield led the Sharks (36-0) to just the sixth undefeated national championship in Division II history.
“It’s been a storybook season and a storybook ending to it,” said Crutchfield, whose record of 359-61, and .855 winning percentage with the Hilltoppers, is the highest among coaches at any NCAA level who spent at least 10 seasons at their institution. “Playing in a championship game with these guys against the school that I worked at for almost 30 years. They gave me my start as a college basketball coach. West Liberty is a great basketball program.”
Graduate student Will Yoakum, who played four seasons at West Liberty before transferring to play for the Sharks, led Nova Southeastern with 31 points. The Sharks also received 28 points from forward RJ Sunahara, 24 points and nine assists from guard Dallas Graziani and 13 points from guard Kobe Rodgers.
“Obviously I’m upset we lost the game, but the overall big picture, I’m really proud of our team,” sixth-year West Liberty coach Ben Howlett said. “They have nothing to be ashamed of. This year was fantastic. Obviously I would’ve liked to have been the national champion … but it didn’t happen this year.
“One thing I’ll say, and I said it last year when we lost in round one of the NCAA tournament, we’ll be back here,” he added. “This is something, this is going to ignite me. I hope it ignites our players. We are going to work even harder.”
Junior guard/forward Bryce Butler, a Latrobe native, led all scorers with 32 points and nine rebounds for the Hilltoppers, who saw five players reach double figures.
Guard Christian Montague scored 19 points, guards Zach Rasile and Steve Cannady added 11 each and forward Chaz Hinds contributed 10.
“I’m really proud of these guys,” Butler said. “They never quit.”
West Liberty (33-4), which saw its 18-game winning streak snapped, stayed in the game with hot shooting from beyond the 3-point arc. The Hilltoppers converted on 16-of-38 3-point attempts, while Nova Southeastern made eight 3-pointers.
“We got some clean looks and knocked them down,” Howlett said.
Fouls, however, became the issue for West Liberty.
The Sharks converted 29-of-39 free-throw attempts, while the Hilltoppers made 19 of 26 from the foul line.
West Liberty was assessed three flagrant fouls and two technical fouls.
“I think there was some composure issues,” Howlett said. “I didn’t obviously see the replays of some of those, so I can’t comment on that, but those were real detrimental to our team. We were fighting, fighting, fighting and we gave them too many free throws.”
Sunahara got the Sharks off to a fast start. He scored 10 of his team’s points in an 11-6 run through the first four minutes of the game.
Nova Southeastern’s lead would balloon to as large as 18-8 in the first half when Yoakum converted a basket just one minute later.
“We did some things uncharacteristic for us early in the game,” Howlett said. “We got off to a really bad start. I think the pace of the game picked up and that’s actually when we started playing better.”
West Liberty’s shots began to fall from distance and the Hilltoppers were able to claw back into the game.
Over the next nearly seven minutes, West Liberty converted on 5-of-11 3-pointers, and a basket by Hinds cut the Hilltoppers’ deficit to 35-33 with five minutes left in the half.
The Sharks would outscore West Liberty, 20-15, over the remainder of the half to take a 55-48 lead into the break.
Sunhara scored 20 points in the first half for Nova Southeastern, while Yoakum scored 15 with six rebounds and Graziani contributed 14 points and seven assists.
The Sharks shot 63% from the field in the first half.
West Liberty kept itself in the game by converting 8-of-16 first-half 3-pointers. Butler and Hinds scored eight points each for the Hilltoppers in the first half, while Cannady and McKinney added seven apiece.
“I thought we were scoring at a high level,” Howlett said. “We just couldn’t get stops when we needed to.”
That trend continued in the second half.
Nova Southeastern kept its lead at about 10 points for much of the second half, and ran out to as large as a 96-80 advantage with 6:34 left in the game.
West Liberty then went on a 21-10 run, cutting its deficit to 106-101 on a Butler 3-pointer with 29 seconds remaining in the game. It was as close as the Hilltoppers would get.
“We never quit,” Howlett said.
John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.