New Jersey's four NCAA Division II institutions all compete in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) along with schools from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and Connecticut. Their hoop dreams are every bit as big as those of Rutgers, Seton Hall, St. Peter's and the state's Division I squads. The road to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight gets underway Tuesday when the Caldwell men and women, Bloomfield men, Felician women and Georgian Court men and women compete in CACC quarterfinal games.
The 13-team league is divided into North and South divisions, with the top four teams in each advancing to the CACC Men's and Women's Tournament. The #1 and #2 seeds on both sides host the #4 and #3 counterparts from the opposite side at home sites in the quarterfinals before those four women's winners and four men's winners advance to the semifinals and finals on Saturday and Sunday at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
Fans can watch the entire first round as part of a "Full Court Press" broadcast on the digital CACC Network on Tuesday. The pre-game show begins at 5 p.m., with coverage of every game and a "whiparound" style switch to key games through the end of the final contest. The network also has live and on-demand coverage of the semifinals and finals.
Briana Lee
For the women, Felician enters as the #3 seed in the North and will take on Holy Family (#2 South) in Philadelphia. Do-everything junior Briana Lee of Jersey City paced the conference in scoring (18.7 ppg) and rebounding (12.0 rpg). She is supported by North Bergen native Katelyn Andres (12.8 ppg) and Swedish import Mimmi Hahne (8.7 ppg) for Head Coach Steve Fagan, in his 15th season the longest-tenured head coach in the CACC North.
The Golden Falcons (11-14 overall, 8-10 CACC) are joined by Caldwell as North Division women's representatives, as the Cougars earned the No. 4 North slot. They'll have the tall task of taking on the nation's 10th-ranked team in Jefferson, which sports a 25-3 overall record and a 16-1 CACC mark. The Cougars (10-17 overall, 6-12 CACC) are paced by the league's second-leading scorer in backcourt sensation and 1000-point scorer Casey O'Shaughnessy (17 ppg), who paces a veteran squad that features four seniors and a grad student in the starting five for second-year Head Coach Christie Conforti.
Savawn Hughes
Lakewood-based Georgian Court claimed the South #4 slot with five wins in its last eight games. Legendary player Jazz Perazic, in her ninth season at the helm of the Lions, has a trio of double-digit scorers in Erika Aspajo (15 ppg), Savawn Hughes (12) and Tian Addison (12). They will battle North regular-season champion Post in the quarterfinals.
On the men's side, the Caldwell men, with Dean Johnson taking over as head coach after three decades as Mark Corino's assistant, has the Cougars rolling. As the tournament's overall #1 seed, they'll be hosting Wilmington in the program's first home quarterfinal game in 15 years. The Cougs are led by a trio of standouts, including freshman Darnell Evans (18 ppg), soph Mark Heber of Paterson (15 ppg) and Jarnel Rancy (NCAA-leading 4.4 blocked shots per game). Kirk Parsons (Newark) and Landon Shivers (Egg Harbor Township) are Jerseyans who round out the starting lineup for the 18-9 Cougars, who finished 14-4 in league play, a huge turnaround from last year's 8-17 squad which missed the CACC tournament.
Tyrek Battle-Holley
Bloomfield, the #2 seed in the North, is the league's hottest team, coming into the tournament having won nine of its last 10, including a 30-point drubbing of league-leading Caldwell on Saturday to secure the home game vs. South No. 3 Georgian Court. Englewood's Andres Fulgencio is one of the CACC's most dynamic players, averaging 16 ppg and 6.6 rpg, with Josh Morris of Ewing right behind at 15.6 ppg and six rpg. Edward Ngene of Lindenwold blocked ten shots against Caldwell on Saturday and swats away 2.5 per game. Gerald Holmes has taken more than a few of his Bears charges to the NCAA Tournament in his 21 years at BC, including the storied 2011 squad that won the East Region and advanced to the Elite Eight as the only CACC men's team to ever advance that far.
Georgian Court struggled in the second half of the season after jumping out to first place in the South in January. The Lions battled back, though, from a stretch of five defeats in six games to win at Chestnut Hill on Saturday to claim the #3 seed. Jamaal Waters (17 ppg, 9 rpg) and Clint Wright Jr. (15 ppg) make up a formidable tandem for Terrence Stewart's squad, with Jalen Bates among the league leaders with four assists per contest.
There will be new champions in the women's and men's brackets in 2023. Last year's women's winner, the University of Sciences, closed its athletics programs after the school merged into St. Joseph's University of Philadelphia. Felician, the men's champions when the tournament was held at Caldwell last year, did not qualify in 2022-23.
The winners of both championships earn automatic bids to the NCAA East Regional on the second weekend of March.
2023 CACC Women's Basketball Championships (all games LIVE at CACCNetwork.com)
Quarterfinals, Tuesday, Feb. 28, at Sites of Highest Seeds
S#4 Georgian Court at N#1 Post (6 p.m.)
N#3 Felician at S#2 Holy Family (6 p.m.)
N#4 Caldwell at S#1 Jefferson (5:30 p.m.)
S#3 Chestnut Hill at N#2 Dominican (6 p.m.)
Semifinals, Saturday, March 5, Gallagher Center, at Thomas Jefferson University
Post/Georgian Court Winner vs. HFU/Felician Winner (12 or 2 p.m.)
Jefferson/Caldwell Winner vs. Dominican/CHC Winner (12 or 2 p.m.)
**-Highest remaining seed will play in the session's first game
**-Second game will begin 30 minutes following the completion of the first game of the session
Championship Final, Sunday, March 5, Gallagher Center, at Thomas Jefferson University
Semifinal Winner vs. Semifinal Winner (12 p.m.)
2023 CACC Men's Basketball Championships
Quarterfinals, Tuesday, Feb. 28, at Sites of Highest Seeds
S#4 Wilmington at N#1 Caldwell (6 p.m.)
N#3 Dominican at S#2 Chestnut Hill (6 p.m.)
N#4 Post at S#1 Jefferson (7:30 p.m.)
S#3 Georgian Court at N#2 Bloomfield (6 p.m.)
Semifinals, Saturday, March 5, Gallagher Center, at Thomas Jefferson University
Caldwell/WilmU Winner vs. CHC/Dominican Winner (5 or 7 p.m.)
Jefferson/Post Winner vs. Bloomfield/GCU Winner (5 or 7 p.m.)
**-Highest remaining seed will play in the session's first game
**-Second game will begin 30 minutes following the completion of the first game of the session
Championship Final, Sunday, March 5, Gallagher Center, at Thomas Jefferson University
Semifinal Winner vs. Semifinal Winner (2:30 p.m.)
- Pickleball, All the Rage, To Get New Dedicated Wayne Courts - February 14, 2024
- 'Boys in the Boat' Can Be a Master Stroke for Rowing in the U.S. - December 12, 2023
- Caldwell Sprint Football Head Coach Jim Kelly Announces Retirement - December 11, 2023
