King, a junior guard who has emerged as the Huskies’ leading scorer, believes Northeastern can make a Cinderella run: “Our confidence is high.”
For the past four months, after losses as well as wins, the Northeastern Huskies and coach Bill Coen have been looking forward to the most important week of the season. And now it is here.
The Huskies (17-14) enter the CAA Men’s Basketball Championship knowing that four wins will earn them an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019.
Northeastern, seeded No. 7 in the 14-team CAA, opens the conference tournament at 6 p.m. Saturday (streaming on FloCollege) against No. 10 Hampton (16-15) at the CareFirst Arena in Washington, D.C. The Huskies split two games with Hampton this season.
“The biggest thing that coach Coen talks about with us is peak in March — don’t worry about the results but more about the habits and the process,” says Rashad King, the Huskies’ leading scorer. “I feel like we built pretty good habits. There’s a lot of good things that we learn and take from each game.
“Our confidence is high. We have a really good chance to shock a lot of people. We think we’re going to go in and win the whole thing.”
Much of their confidence is drawn from King’s breakout season. The 6-foot-6 junior guard ranked fifth in the conference in scoring this year. He led the Huskies with 3.4 assists and was their No. 2 rebounder (6.0) while starting every game.
King has stepped forth in the absence of Masai Troutman, who was voted by rival coaches to the All-CAA preseason second team. Troutman has been sidelined for the past 12 games.
“I wouldn’t say I would have predicted that,” Coen says of King’s emergence. “But I’m not at all shocked by it. If you took a poll this summer in our locker room, like, ‘Who is going to be our leader and one of our best players, if not our best player?’ I think most of our players would have said Rashad.
“It’s the way he carries himself — not only in practice but off the court as well. He’s got a presence about him.”
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Both of King’s parents have served in the Air Force.
“I learned everything I know from my dad,” says King, who is from Evans, Georgia. “He coached me since I was 3. He taught me to think the game.”
King initially committed to the Air Force Academy before signing with the University of Missouri-Kansas City. When the school changed coaches, he quickly shifted to Northeastern, where he joined a large incoming class of six freshmen.
“Your freshman year tends to be hit-or-miss,” Coen says of the learning curve faced by King and his classmates. “You enter college with a kind of blind confidence — you don’t know what you don’t know. The biggest jump is between your freshman and sophomore year where now you’re aware of the challenges in front of you and you make a conscious commitment to tackle them.”
As King grew stronger while working out multiple times per day, his scoring almost tripled to 8.3 points per game as a sophomore. He has added another 10 points to his average while emerging as Northeastern’s go-to scorer this season, thanks in part to staying on campus last summer for extended workouts with fellow three-year Huskies Troutman, Harold Woods and Collin Metcalf.
“He has a mindset where he’s going to approach each and every day the same,” Coen says. “He’s taken a more businesslike approach to his game and that has enabled him to not only play at a high level but also play the volume of minutes that he has for us while being so consistent.”
King’s scoring is triggered by his timeless midrange game. His ability to beat defenders on the dribble to create shots for himself and teammates will be crucial as the Huskies seek to win four games in as many days.
“March is such an exciting time in college basketball,” says Coen, who is seeking a third March Madness bid as Northeastern’s all-time winningest men’s basketball coach. “It’s been my experience that how you deal with the emotions determines if you’re going to let the moment crush you — or if you’re going to rise to the occasion.
“We’re hoping to catch a little magic in March here,” adds Coen while referring to the surprising CAA run last year by No. 7 seed Stony Brook, which scored two upsets before losing the final 82-79 in overtime to No. 1 Charleston.
“I’ve always wanted to go to March Madness,” King says. “We’ve been talking about it since we got here as freshmen. It wasn’t a reality our first year. But now we see that it’s attainable. You can see it in the eyes of all my guys — we’re ready to go.”