– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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WASHINGTON — Not everyone has their One Shining Moment in March. More often than not, that time in the sun never happens as the eclipse that is the abrupt, most times brutal, end of the season is at its peak. While every March elimination is painful, the teams that spent their whole conference season proving with little doubt that it’s the best team in the league only to then get knocked out of their own tournament before the Big Dance almost undoubtedly is the most painful of March exits.
And with that, we send our commiserations to UNC Wilmington.
Last year’s CAA Tournament champions, the Seahawks came into Washington as the outright regular season champions for 2026 and one of the top non-Power conference teams in the nation … and now must leave the nation’s capital just as quickly as they arrived as the top-seeded Seahawks were stunned in today’s quarterfinal against No. 9 Campbell 85-70 in the first quarterfinal game on Sunday afternoon at CareFirst Arena. The Seahawks entered the half with a 33-31 lead, but a 16-0 run by the Fighting Camels early in the second half stunned the defending champions, who were never able to cut their deficit to even single digits the rest of the way.
All-CAA guard DJ Smith scored 17 of his team-high 20 points in the second half to lead a balanced scoring effort for Campbell. Backcourt mate Jeremiah Johnson tallied 17 points, post player Dovydas Butka added 14 points and eight rebounds, and Chris Fields Jr. provided 11 points and a team-high nine boards off the bench.
If there is one team that clearly understands the misery that the Seahawks are going through, it is seventh-seeded Towson, who has seen their fair share of CAA Tournament pain occur in Washington after highly-successful regular seasons under 15-year head coach Pat Skerry. The preseason favorite coming into this CAA season shockingly stumbled to the middle of the pack despite having two former All-CAA players on the roster still, including last year’s CAA Player of the Year Tyler Tejada. But maybe their disappointing regular season might yield tournament success, which is all that matters for those in this level of Division 1 who want to make the NCAA Tournament. After the Tigers’ win yesterday against No. 10 seed Hampton, where Tejada poured in a career-high 35 points, they will take on the highest seed remaining in the tournament, No. 2 Charleston, in the first game of the night session.
Third-seeded Hofstra will get their CAA Tournament journey underway in the nightcap when it faces No. 6 William & Mary.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Sunday’s quarterfinals, with photos taken by DC-area photographers Clifford Ray Williams and Michael R. Smith. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 13 pictures in total.
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