Seventh and eighth seeds Cleveland State and Roane State pulled off giant surprises in the TCCAA/NJCAA Region VII men’s basketball tournament quarterfinals Sunday at Cleveland State.
The host Cougars beat No. 2 seed Motlow State 92-76 after Roane edged top-seeded Walters State 82-78. In between, fourth seed Dyersburg State nipped Chattanooga State 76-75 to set up a semifinal at 6 Tuesday night against Roane’s Raiders.
Cleveland State will play the 8 p.m. game against Columbia State, which topped third seed Southwest Tennessee 69-64 in overtime. The women’s semifinals Tuesday pit Walters against Roane at 2 and Motlow against Chattanooga State at 4.
Richard Nunez had 26 points on 11-of-14 shooting and 18 rebounds, nine offensive, for the Chattanooga State men (17-13), who got within one after trailing 70-55 and had chances to go ahead. AJ Morris and Joshua Conrad added 11 and 10 points. Dyersburg (23-7) was led by Aaron King with 23 points and nine rebounds and Antwan Beans with seven assists and 10 points.
The Cougars (13-15) have the two biggest winning margins in either tournament. Sunday they got 25 points and eight rebounds from Delaino Wallker, 18 points apiece from Exavian Young and Jonathon King and 10 points each from Demonte Person and Domont’a Wright, Person adding seven assists. Leo Castillo had 18 points and seven assists for Motlow (18-11), Joshua Greer and Darius Harding scoring 16 and 13.
James Jordan had 23 points, seven rebounds and five assists for Roane State, and Miles Thomas had 31 points and 10 rebounds for Walters. Lorenzo McGhee had 16 points and eight rebounds in Columbia State’s upset win as the sixth seed. J’Sebian Brown had 13 points and six assists for Southwest’s Saluqis, who erased a 13-point deficit to force overtime.