Two days before the bracket for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament was unveiled, Damian Chong Qui insisted he was not worried who he and his Mount St. Mary’s teammates would meet in their first game.
“On Selection Sunday, I don’t care who they put us against,” the junior point guard said Friday. “I like my guys over anybody. I know we’re going to fight – no matter who we’re playing against.”
Chong Qui, a Baltimore resident and McDonogh graduate, stood by his comments even after the Mountaineers (12-10), the Northeast Conference champions, learned they would meet Texas Southern (16-8), the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) titlist, in a No. 16 seed play-in on Thursday for a chance to meet the Big Ten’s Michigan (20-4), the No. 1 seed in the East Region. Tipoff is scheduled for 5:10 p.m. on truTV at Assembly Hall on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington.
This will be the first-ever meeting between the Mountaineers and Tigers, which sent associate head coach Will Holland and assistant coaches Matt Miller and Matt Graves scrambling to find film of Texas Southern even before the NCAA selection show on television had ended.
“We are locking in on Texas Southern,” coach Dan Engelstad said minutes after the selection show had ended. “This is a team we don’t know much about yet. So for us, our focus completely goes to, how are we going to guard Texas Southern? How are we going to attack them? How are we going to put a plan together in a short amount of time? There won’t be a whole lot of sleep here the next couple nights, but that’s the best part for coaches. We love this. We love to find out ways that we can win a game against another champion.”
Mount St. Mary’s is 2-5 in five previous trips to the NCAA postseason with both wins occurring in Opening Round or First Four stages. Chong Qui said he didn’t take any offense to being routed to another First Four game and potentially clashing with Michigan with fewer days of rest and preparation.
“I didn’t really care where we were or when we played or who we played,” he said. “I’m just ready to play. We’re here to win games. So whatever we need to do, we’re going to be ready and we’re going to be well prepared.”
Engelstad said he and his staff had braced for the possibility of being placed in the First Four games and agreed with his point guard that he was not offended by the selection committee’s decision.
“That’s the thing with 68. We’re in the play-in game, but everybody in here is either one of the best teams in the country or a champion,” he said. “So we’re going to have our hands full.”
Engelstad admitted that they don’t know much about the Tigers, who are riding a nine-game winning streak that began after a 77-75 loss to Prairie View A&M on Feb. 21. They led the SWAC in scoring at 74.8 points per game and rebounding at 41.5 and are paced by senior guard Michael Weathers’ 16.5 points and 5.2 rebounds.
“Usually you have connections with a league, but we don’t have a whole lot of connections to where they play,” Engelstad said. “So they are pretty foreign to us in terms of what we know about them as a basketball program. I know they’ve had success. I know they’ve been to the NCAA tournament multiple times in the last decade. So they have a tradition of winning, and I know for them, they’ve been hot lately. So besides that, I can’t give you too much more because I found out just like you guys did.”
Chong Qui said it was wild to watch the team’s reaction being aired during the selection show.
“That was crazy,” he said. “The last two years, I’ve watched that on TV. So for myself and the rest of our guys, that was a great feeling.”
Reaching this stage has already cast the Mountaineers in a different spotlight. Engelstad has already made multiple appearances on sports talk radio programs, and Engelstad and Chong Qui were on CBS Sports on Saturday when Chong Qui and his father Edward shared a poignant moment.
“His life story is inspiring, and that’s what March does,” Engelstad said of Chong Qui, who has overcome an unusual amount of adversity with the support of his father. “It allows stories to be heard and allows for those special moments. I think we were all touched by the moment he and his father had.”
Mount St. Mary’s has already opened as a very slight underdog to Texas Southern. But merely making it this far is not the mission.
“We are excited for this incredible opportunity, but we’re not satisfied, and that’s the message,” Engelstad said. “This is an opportunity that we’ve got to embrace. It’s different with COVID just with the protocols, but you can sense the enthusiasm with this team just for the chance to compete.”
NCAA First Four
NO. 16 SEED MOUNT ST. MARY’S VS. NO. 16 SEED TEXAS SOUTHERN
Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Ind.
Thursday, 5:10 p.m.
TV: truTV
Line: Texas Southern by 2