• Recap
• Bleachers
• Game Tracker

Northeastern dancing for first time since 1991

Mar 10, 2015 - 1:14 AM Baltimore, MD (SportsNetwork.com) - Northeastern is back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 24 years.

Williams & Mary's long wait will last at least one more year.

Quincy Ford scored 22 points and Northeastern held on to beat William & Mary 72-61 on Monday to win the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament.

David Walker added 15 points, Caleb Donnelly had 13 and Scott Eatherton scored 12 for the third-seeded Huskies (23-11), who will carry a three-game winning streak into their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1991.

William & Mary, armed with the No. 1 seed and coming off a double-overtime win in the semifinals, remains one of only five original Division I teams never to have made the NCAA Tournament.

Marcus Thornton led the Tribe (20-12) with 20 points a day after getting a tournament-record 37 against Hofstra. Daniel Dixon, who hit the 3 that won Sunday's game, added 15 points and Terry Tarpey chipped in 10.

William & Mary was playing in the conference title game for the fourth time in the last eight years.

The Tribe made a valiant push after trailing by 22 in the second half, but a 16-0 run led by Thornton and Dixon came up short.

Ford scored 15 of his 22 points in the first half, including eight during a 10-0 Northeastern run to open the game, which was punctuated by consecutive 3s from the junior.

The Huskies never trailed. William & Mary tied the score three times in the first half before Northeastern scored 16 of the final 22 points for a 36-26 lead at the break.

The Huskies shot better than 63 percent in the half and stretched their lead to 13 early in the second.

Game Notes

Army, St. Francis of New York, Northwestern and The Citadel are the other four original Division I programs that have never made the NCAA Tournament ... The Huskies lead the all-time series with William & Mary 10-9 ... In addition to its four appearances in the CAA title game, William & Mary also played for the Southern Conference championship in 1958, 1961, 1965 and 1975 and the ECAC South title game in 1983 ... Northeastern made seven NCAA Tournament appearances between 1981-91 ... It was the third consecutive year the No. 1 seed played the No. 3 seed in the conference title game.