Meet the NEC champion LIU Sharks, who enter March Madness as a No. 16 seed in the West Region.
Location: Brooklyn
Enrollment: 11,753 undergraduates (over 15,000 total)
Coach: Rod Strickland (4th season)
Last NCAA appearance: 2018
NCAA Tournament history: Seven appearances, 0-7
How they got here: Rod Strickland, the Bronx native and former Knicks guard, achieved one of the most remarkable rebuilding feats in the nation after the Sharks went 3-26 during his first season as a head coach. Three years later, the former ball-handling wizard instilled his roster with a defensive identity and was cutting down a net in Brooklyn, capturing LIU’s first Northeast Conference regular-season title since 2012, and the school’s first conference tournament title in seven years.
Starters
G Jamal Fuller
16.4 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 2.5 apg
G Malachi Davis
14.4 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 3.4 apg
G Greg Gordon
14.1 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 2.9 apg
G Jomo Goings
10.0 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 1.4 spg
F Shadrak Lasu
5.2 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 1.5 bpg
Key Reserves
F Mason Porter-Brown
7.6 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 0.8 spg
Player to Watch
Senior Greg Gordon, the MVP of the NEC Tournament and the NEC Defensive Player of the Year, is at his fourth school in four years, previously making pit stops at Iona and UAB after becoming a junior college All-American at Dyersburg State Community College. The 6-foot-5 guard ranked in the top 10 in the NEC in points (13.7), rebounds (5.6), steals (1.7) and blocks (0.8).
Key Numbers
60: The percentage of LIU scoring that came from its three all-league guards — Davis, Fuller and Gordon.
36.1: The Sharks’ 3-point percentage, which ranks among the top 55 teams in the nation.
11.2: The percentage of defensive possessions that end with the Sharks recording a steal.
