Liberty Men’s Basketball Defeats Stetson 88-82 Following Two Consecutive Defeats

Though it came down to a neck-and-neck final few minutes, Liberty’s men’s basketball pulled through with an 88-82 win over Stetson Feb. 19 in front of an energetic home crowd bolstered by College For A Weekend (CFAW) visitors.

After dropping its last two conference games, Liberty men’s basketball needed to beat Stetson to hold the top rank in the ASUN. The team pulled through on the back of senior guard Darius McGhee’s electric offensive performance, notching 39 points that broke the Liberty Arena record for the most points scored in a game.

“We have a good team, and when our crowd is that involved, we’re better,” Head Coach Ritchie McKay said. “I thought Flames Nation was tremendous tonight.”

McGhee also broke the ASUN record for 3-pointers in a season. The previous record stood at 117 – McGhee is up to 123. 

Liberty beat Stetson early this season, but this late season contest would prove to be a hard-fought win for the Flames. The Hatters scored first, but the teams would go back and forth for most of the first half.

After exchanging the lead early, McGhee scored six points in 30 seconds.

Throughout the second half, it looked like Liberty would take the victory as it built a 15-point lead with 14 minutes left in the game. Stetson, however, gained momentum by luring Liberty into speeding up possessions, resulting in multiple Flames’ turnovers.

Led by three 3-pointers from Chase Johnston, the Hatters went on a 13-point run, which propelled Stetson to a 80-79 lead with 1:26 left in the game. The fans in the crowd took to their feet as McGhee answered the Hatters’ comeback with a layup and a 3-pointer. 

Once again, the Hatters attempted to quicken the game’s pace, but this resulted in Stetson fouling McGhee and Isiah Warfield. Both Flames’ players went 2-2 on the line, sealing the victory.

Though happy with a win, redshirt senior Keegan McDowell acknowledged that there is still some work to do before postseason play.

“I think in the last half of the last couple games, we’ve kind of gotten away from what we do,” McDowell said. “Doing what we do starts on defense, so we got to clean that up, especially in the last half.”

Offensively, Johnston of Stetson almost matched McGhee’s record-breaking play with 38 points of his own.

“Stetson played a really good game. (They have) two really good guards in Chase and Christiaan (Jones). They played terrific,” McKay said.

The Flames end their regular season with home matchups against FGCU and Kennesaw State Feb. 23 and 26. These games as well as a Monday contest on the road at Central Arkansas will determine the seeding for
the postseason.

McKay expects this week to be a challenging one.

“The misnomer is that we’re just going to dominate the ASUN because we’ve done it in the past. (But) there’s some good teams and some really good coaches, so we got to keep improving,” McKay said.

The Flames will look to put themselves in a place to win another ASUN title with both the top seed in the conference and postseason home-court advantage still up for grabs. 

Liberty is currently first in the ASUN East and second overall behind Jacksonville State. As things stand, the Flames will host every game up until the ASUN Championship Final.

COSENTINO is a sports reporter. Follow him on Twitter