Indiana (Pa.) upsets VUU 69-63

ERIE, Pa. – Gregg Thondique scored 18 points before aggravating an already tender right ankle during the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division II Atlantic Region today at the Hammermill Center.

Thondique spent most of the last 17:26 on the bench, which enabled Indiana (Pa.) University (22-7) to pull off a 69-63 upset in the teams’ first-ever meeting. The Crimson Hawks advance to play Kutztown in tomorrow’s semifinals.

The second-seeded Panthers (21-7), whose last court appearance was a lost to Johnson C. Smith two weeks ago in the CIAA tournament title game, were ousted in the opening round for the second year in a row.

“When our top gun went down, it hurt us a lot,“ said Virginia Union first-year coach Willard Coker. “It took away our inside game. It took away our momentum.“

More importantly, the Panthers no longer had Thondique to bail them out as he did all season when VUU fired mostly blanks from the perimeter. Also, there was no one to compete on the boards with the Crimson Hawks, who parlayed a 16-rebound advantage (41-25) into uncontested second-chance points.

“We feed off of Gregg,“ said Brandon Byerson, who scored only nine points on 3-for-12 shooting. “It put a lot of pressure on Braxton [Byerson] and I to create our own shots, because they could come outside to challenge our shots without Gregg being inside.“

Lemoyne Williams had 14 points and Kyle Cook added 11 for VUU. Gerald Brooks paced IUP with 20 points and Julian Sanders made four 3-pointers in scoring 11.