By Ed Morrone

RICHMOND, Va.-When North Carolina-Wilmington’s 23-point lead dwindled to three in the waning moments of the Colonial Athletic Association championship game, T.J. Carter bailed his team out.

Carter scored 12 of his 23 points in the final three minutes Monday night as his Seahawks defeated the Pride 78-67, staving off a furious rally in the process that won UNC-Wilmington its fourth conference title in seven years.

“I kind of had to make plays,” the junior guard said. “That’s my job here. [My teammates] stepped up for me for 37 minutes and grinded it out. I got some good looks [at the end] and the shots went down.”

The win gave the Seahawks an automatic bid in this month’s NCAA Tournament and left the Pride hoping for an at-large invitation come Sunday night’s selection show.

Loren Stokes scored 26 points and grabbed seven rebounds and Carlos Rivera added 16 and eight for the Pride, which had advanced to the title game by defeating Virginia Commonwealth and George Mason in the quarterfinals and semifinals, respectively.

“Give Wilmington credit,” Pride head coach Tom Pecora said. “We just weren’t able to match their intensity, but I was proud with the way we continued to compete. There was no lack of fight in us.”

The Pride (24-6) may have looked good in the end, but the team came out as flat as can be and quickly dug a hole for itself. Wilmington (25-7) jumped out to an early 22-5 lead and increased it to 35-15 before the Pride was able to close the gap to 38-26 at halftime.

Four minutes into the second half, though, the Seahawks put together a 15-4 run that pushed their lead to 53-30, and it appeared the Pride was headed for an ugly loss at the worst possible time.

However, with their backs against the wall, the Pride players responded with a 24-5 run to pull within 62-59 with four minutes left. After a missed Wilmington jumper, the Blue & Gold then had the ball with a chance to cut it to one or tie it, but sophomore guard Antoine Agudio misread a cut and threw the ball away, paving the way for Carter to get hot at exactly the right time for his team.

Carter hit a jumper in the lane and scored a three-point play with 2:11 remaining to make it 67-60. Agudio scored on a three-pointer, but Carter’s deep three with the shot clock winding down was the final nail in the Pride’s coffin.

“We didn’t execute the game plan,” Pride junior guard Loren Stokes said. “They got up 20 and it was hard to get back. We kept fighting, but they made some big shots late.”

Now, unfortunately for the Pride, the team’s fate is in the hands of the NCAA selection committee, which will reveal NCAA and NIT brackets on Sunday evening. The Pride hopes the comeback, paired with its 58-49 win over George Mason in the semifinals is good enough to gain an invitation to the former, but the team knows it has no say and is at the committee’s mercy.

“Whatever happens, happens,” Stokes said. “We have no control over that.”

The team would’ve certainly had that control had it not come out so lethargic in the first half, but it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. This was Carter and Wilmington’s night, and not even the Pride’s commendable comeback could change that.

“We’ve had a little chip on our shoulder all weekend because everything we looked at, Wilmington was on page five,” said Seahawks coach Brad Brownell, referring to all the attention the Pride and Mason got over the weekend. “Very few people were talking about us. We felt like we had to play our way in, and we certainly did that tonight.”

For the Pride, all that’s left to do is wait.

“They deserve to be in the NCAA Tournament,” Pecora said. “We feel we belong as well.”