ASU still playing basketball
Appalachian State lives on in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament.
The Mountaineers dismantled Marshall 80-72 in the quarterfinals Monday night, becoming just the fourth team in 19 games to win on Marshall’s home court this season and the first to win by more than four points.
Rebounding was a key. The Mountaineers dominated on the boards 47-28.
“If we keep doing that, we’ve got a shot to win this thing,” Coach Buzz Peterson said.
Next up for the Mountaineers is Pacific. They’ll play in the semifinals Thursday night at 8 o’clock in Boone. The winner will play for the CIT title next Tuesday at the survivor of Wednesday night’s Creighton at Missouri State game.
When ASU plays Pacific, it will be meeting a current member of the Big West Conference for just the second time.
The Mountaineers lost to UC Santa Barbara 29-26 in 1941 during the NAIA Tournament in Kansas City.
ASU is one of 32 Division I teams still playing this season. Sixteen remain in the NCAA Tournament, eight in the NIT and four in both the CIT and CBI.
If the Mountaineers (24-12) win Thursday night, they will match the 2006-07 ASU team (25-8) for most victories in a season. The 36 games played by ASU this season is a school record.
BOOTH’S EARLY EXIT
Jeremi Booth, a starting guard for ASU, apparently was a victim of circumstance when he was called for a technical foul along with Marshall’s Shaquille Johnson with 3:58 left in Monday’s quarterfinal game.
“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Coach Buzz Peterson said.
Peterson, in a reactionary moment, sent Booth to the locker room after the technical was issued.
“Jeremi kind of got caught in the wrong position,” Peterson said. “He wasn’t in the game, he didn’t say anything. Why the official called the technical on him, we don’t know. I probably over-reacted more than anything and sent him to the locker room. But it’s the third time we have gotten a technical after a timeout this year. That irritated me.”
Peterson said that he isn’t certain if anything was said or who said it as players were converging to huddle after a timeout.
“The next thing I know he gave Booth and a kid from Marshall a technical,” Peterson said. “It worked in our favor, because it was the other kid’s fifth foul.”
In regard to Booth, Peterson said that everything is fine now. He’ll be good to go when the Mountaineers play Pacific in the semifinals.