Liberty leads wire-to-wire in CollegeInsider opener

The lower-tier postseason college basketball tournaments are an interesting case study. For all intents and purposes, the main goal of any team’s season — advancing to the NCAA tournament — was not met. So there are natural questions. Do the athletes care about playing in the so-called consolation tournaments? Do the fans care?

The NIT has prestige and history going for it. The College Basketball Invitational has an odd best two-of-three finals format. The CollegeInsider.com Tournament was a bit of an enigma, seeing as Liberty was one of four teams kicking off the inaugural event Tuesday night.

As the team returned from spring break Friday to practice in preparation for the Flames’ first-round game (though the matchup with Rider wasn’t announced until late Sunday night, LU’s athletics department had a pretty good idea an invite would be proffered), coach Ritchie McKay didn’t find motivation to be a problem. And he stressed a simple fact. In the postseason, the team with the higher level of motivation usually wins.

The Flames, stinging from a 2-3 stretch to end the regular-season, including two losses to VMI by a combined 57 points, wanted to have fonder memories as they broke for the summer. They jumped on the Broncs early, racing to a 22-point first-half lead and eventually a 79-64 victory.

The most motivated player might have been Liberty senior guard Anthony Smith, who finished with 25 points, nine rebounds and four assists. VMI ruined his senior night Feb. 24, so he wasn’t about to go through the motions Tuesday.

“I just had a really good week of practice, a lot of focus,” Smith said. “I just didn’t want my season to end.”

It will continue for at least five more days. The Flames (23-11) won’t know their second round opponent until late Thursday night, when the tournament’s first round ends. There’s a “90 percent chance,” one Liberty official said, that the game will be at the Vines Center.

Liberty led wire to wire and built a huge lead within the first seven minutes. Seth Curry, suddenly unencumbered by the trick defenses employed by Big South opponents the last two months, got going early as the Flames built a 17-5 lead. Rider (19-13), the MAAC’s third-place team, never got within single digits after that.

Curry had 19 points on 6 of 13 shooting. Jesse Sanders, who was so sick Monday that he couldn’t talk and scarfed down half a tuna sandwich in the media room just before game time to gain some energy, played 24 minutes, the most since injuring his right ankle Feb. 18. He had 10 points, three assists and four rebounds.

“It’s definitely different, just seeing regular man-to-man defense,” Curry said. “I had a lot more freedom.”

Rider’s top scorer, Ryan Thompson, was hampered by severe flu-like symptoms, so much so that he vomited during the afternoon shoot-around, RU coach Tommy Dempsey said. Thompson, who “gave us what he had,” Dempsey said, shot 2 of 13 from the floor and finished with seven points, more than 11 points below his season average. Smith did the bulk of the defending on Thompson, who looked “half a step slow,” McKay said.

But Dempsey, whose team played in the CBI last year, wouldn’t use Thompson’s health as an excuse.

“They played really well. They out-played us and deserved to win,” Dempsey said. “They gave it to us pretty good tonight.”

The Flames sapped Rider’s will early, opening the game on a 13-3 run and using another 12-3 spurt to extend the lead to 33-13 just more than 10 minutes in.

“They shot 70 percent in the first half, and I thought we had contested a lot of their shots,” Dempsey said. “They ran good offense, and I thought they shared the ball well. Ritchie’s doing a great job with them. They were hard to guard, and they have a lot of guys who can shoot the ball.”

Curry, one of five freshmen on the team, spoke to the Flames’ motivation for this tournament, which includes only schools from mid- and low-major conferences. Though the fans didn’t come out — the crowd of 1,454 was Liberty’s smallest at home since a Christmas break game against Cincinnati Christian — the Flames were eager to erase the memory of a 20-point Big South tournament semifinal defeat and enter the summer on a positive note.

“Any game where you can go out and get better and learn and get experience is good,” Curry said. “With as many freshmen as we have, any game is good for us.”

DRIBBLES: F Brolin Floyd, who started 29 games for the Flames and average 6.0 points and 4.7 rebounds per game, has transferred, McKay said. Floyd told McKay of his intentions last Friday. … Smith now has 1,728 career points and moved past Peter Aluma for second on LU’s Division I scoring list. He’s sixth all-time on LU’s overall list. … Novar Gadson scored a career-high 24 points to lead the Broncs.