St. Peter's controlled the tempo of the 2017 CIT Championship Game against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and their defensive style of play helped them out in a 62-61 victory on Friday night. The Peacocks carried themselves, shooting 48.9 percent from the field and making 8-of-20 from 3-point range. Similar to the semifinal game, St. Peters' opponent had a big lead in the opening minutes. The Islanders led by as much as 23-11 with 7:37 remaining in the first half. The Peacocks responded with a 15-5 run to only be down by two at the halftime break and they eventually pulled out the win.
St. Peter's does things their way and it works
Throughout the season, the Peacocks held their opponents to 60.8 points on average, which is fourth best in the nation. That was the winning recipe for them in the CIT tournament. Giving up 61 points to TAMU-CC was the most they gave up in the four-game stretch. They held the rest of their opponents to 55 points or less. Even more impressive was that three of their four tournament games happened away from home, including the title game.
Center Quadir Welton (12 ppg, 8.2 rpg) was the player of the game for St. Peter's with 13 rebounds and 12 points. It was the second double-double he collected in a row. Cavon Baker (6.6 ppg) really stepped up with 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting.
He reached double figures twice in the CIT tournament, including 10 points against Texas State in the quarterfinals.
Rashawn Thomas can't carry Texas A&M-CC
The Islanders were held to 43 percent shooting from the field and nailed just 4-of-16 3-pointers. It's truly been a staple of the Peacocks to torture teams offensively and only Rashawn Thomas (22.5 ppg, 9 rpg) was able to break the code.
He finished with 20 points and 13 boards, and he made 8-of-15 field goal attempts but missed all three 3-pointers.
Only Kareem South (9 ppg, 3.7 rpg) scored in double figures with 11 points. He made some waves by putting up 20 points against UMBC on the road. That was Texas A&M-CC's only road game of the tournament, as they hosted the other three contests. Unfortunately, home court advantage didn't help them out in the title game.
