Mount St. Mary’s is no stranger to the NCAA tournament, and they punched their 6th ticket to the Big Dance on Tuesday night with a 73-68 victory over Bryant in the NEC Championship Game. The climb was especially sweet for the 5-foot-8 Damian Chong Qui and the 6-foot-9 Nana Opoku. Chong Qui poured in 21 points, including 9 straight in waning moments of the 2nd half, and Opoku had 18 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 blocks.
Nobody was more excited about the win than Chong Qui. He told the Baltimore Sun,“That’s the best feeling ever,” said Chong. “I’ve never won a championship at any level. This is the greatest thing in my life. I can’t even put it into words.” Damian is the Mount’s undisputed leader, especially since their leading scorer Jalen Gibbs opted out of the season in December. He averaged 15.1 points, 4.2 rebounds, 5.5 assists and a steal a game to lead the Mountaineers to a 12-10 record and a 4th-seed in the four-team NEC Conference Tournament.
Throughout a some-what pedestrian regular season, Mount St. Mary’s did not get the chance to play Tuesday’s opponent, Bryant at all. They had scheduled back-to-back tilts twice with the Bulldogs, but both series got canceled.
Bryant was attempting to qualify for the tourney for the first time in their 13-year D1 history. Charles Pride almost single-handedly walked the Dogs into the Dance, scoring 33 points and nailing 8-12 from 3-land, while the rest of the team was 0-13. His layup with 18 seconds left brought Bryant within 2 points at 70-68, but after being fouled, 45% free throw shooter, Nana Opoku calmly sank 2 free ones for the Mount to seal the win.
Moving over into the fast lane, Opoku is developing a half hook shot to go along with his incredible dunks and blocks. He has put up 10.3 points, 7 rebounds, 1.2 assists, and 2 blocks a game this season. His father, Alfred thinks Nana may get some of his athletic ability from him; Alfred played college soccer in his home country of Ghana. But no one has any idea where he gets his 6-9, 210 pound size, Alfred and Adjei; Nana’s mother, are both 5-7. “His parents are wonderful people,” Mount St. Mary’s HC Dan Engelstad told Edward Lee of the Baltimore Sun, “I don’t know where he got that size from, but we’ll take it, that’s for sure.”
After some early season struggles, Opoku started to turn things around on January 30th with 19pts/10rbs and a career-high 6 blocks in a 61-58 loss to Sacred Heart. He backed that up with 8 and 8 and 3 blocks in a 76-64 win the next day. In his last four games, all wins for the Mount, Nana has averaged 14.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 3 blocks a game, while shooting 67% from the floor. On Tuesday, however, his most important contribution was 4-6 from the free throw line where he was just 45% for the season. The work effort is there, as he was named NEC tournament MVP and NEC Defensive Player of the Year, and if he can continue to improve his offensive game, there may be a possibility of the NBA calling.
Short in stature, big in heart is a term thrown around loosely with smaller guards at every level in basketball, but the 5-8, 155-pound Damian Chong Qui embodies the “big in heart” portion of that assessment. Chong Qui never came off the court for the Mountaineers Tuesday, playing all 40 minutes and drilling some impressively long 3-pointers with the clock running down, also collecting 8 boards, and dishing out 5 timely assists. That is heart on the court, but the amazing part of Chong Qui is his perseverance off the court to get to his dream of an NCAA tourney bid.
Wrong place, wrong time has haunted Chong Qui’s life in Baltimore ever since he was 3-years old when on Jan. 13th, 2002, his father Edward Chong Qui was shot once and stabbed five times during a home invasion. Then on March 1st of that same year, his mother Lisa Renee Brown was one of two people found slain in former heavyweight champion boxer Hasim Rahman’s vehicle. She along with Oliver Leon McCafferty were shot in the head in the front seat.
Damian remembers very little of his mother, “I probably know more about her death than her life,” he told Edward Lee of the Baltimore Sun. “…My mother was at the wrong place at the wrong time.” If that wasn’t enough heartache for one family, on Sept. 29th, 2010, his father was picking up food for he and Damian after dropping Damian at home, and was shot in the back by stray bullets. Edward was paralyzed from the waist down.
As a 12-year old, Damian was thrust into the role of teenage caretaker. He helped his dad with all of his 5 daily living functions including dressing him and carrying him to their vehicle. Gerald Abrams, an assistant coach for Damian’s high school team, McDonogh told Lee “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had a game or a practice, and the van has pulled up, and I see Damian run up to the van and go get the wheelchair and put his father in the wheelchair,” Abrams said. “And I can’t tell you how many times his father has said, ‘I haven’t had anybody except for Damian.'”
After Tuesday’s game, both Chong Qui and Opoku could not contain their jubilation and who could blame them? “This is something that you can’t even describe,” said Opuku. “This is going to go down in the history books forever. It’s with guys that you love and you’ve been hooping with for so long, there’s nothing better than this.” The Mount may be heading to a First Four play-in game, but no matter how large or small their chances are in the bracket, led by Chong Qui and Opoku, they seem truly happy to be in the mix.
