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<p>Things have been going pretty well for Misericordia basketball. Five straight wins. Home-court advantage for the conference finals. An award for the league&#8217;s top freshman.</p><p>The Cougars even got an assist from a squirrel this week.</p><p>While Misericordia was finishing off an emphatic 85-65 win at Eastern on Wednesday, the other league semifinal was postponed when said squirrel bit through a power line at Delaware Valley, knocking out power at the Doylestown campus.</p><p>A day later, the top-seeded Aggies came out shooting cold and never recovered, losing to No. 4 DeSales and allowing Misericordia to host the Bulldogs for Saturday&#8217;s Freedom Conference championship. Tip-off will be 3 p.m. at the Anderson Center with an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament on the line.</p><p>For starters, the extra day between playoff games doesn&#8217;t figure to be a huge factor.</p><p>&#8220;These kids are all young &#8212; the adrenaline is going to be there for both teams,&#8221; Cougars coach Willie Chandler said. &#8220;The teams know each other. When you&#8217;re playing for the third time, there&#8217;s no surprises.</p><p>&#8220;(DeSales coach Scott Coval) will have his guys ready to go.&#8221;</p><p>But what is important for the Cougars is getting to play at home rather than traveling down the turnpike to face Delaware Valley. This will be Misericordia&#8217;s fifth time playing for the conference crown since joining up in 2008-09 &#8212; the Cougars are 2-0 at home and 0-2 on the road.</p><p>As it happens, both of those road losses in the finals came against DeSales. This season, however, the Cougars have had the Bulldogs&#8217; number, beating them 99-76 in January at home and then 91-83 in Center Valley just 11 days ago.</p><p>&#8220;We match up well with them,&#8221; Chandler said. &#8220;They like to post their guards up, and they can&#8217;t always do that because our guards are big. We have the big bodies to match up with them down low. We might be two of the biggest teams in the league.&#8221;</p><p>DeSales finished the regular season with the conference&#8217;s top-rated defense, allowing just 70.4 points per game on average. The Cougars have the league&#8217;s best offense at 86.3 points per game and managed to solve the Bulldogs in the first two meetings.</p><p>Still, Misericordia has played with confidence at the offensive end all year long. What helped lift the Cougars into this position &#8212; they were in danger of missing the playoffs with just two weeks left in the regular season &#8212; was an improvement on defense.</p><p>The best example of that came in the semifinal win over Eastern, as the Cougars held the talented Eagles to 65 points on 36 percent shooting on the road.</p><p>&#8220;That was definitely one of our top performances offensively and defensively,&#8221; Chandler said. &#8220;We&#8217;re playing well overall. I trust my guys. I think we&#8217;re ready to go.&#8221;</p><p>Both squads placed two players on the All-Freedom Conference team, which was announced Friday. Misericordia&#8217;s Jason Kenny (first team) and Tony Harding (second team) were honored, as were DeSales&#8217; Kuity Slanger (first team) and Ryan Callahan (second team).</p><p>Kenny, a sophomore, was edged for the Player of the Year award by Eastern senior Shaquan Turk in a vote by conference coaches. But Harding was named Rookie of the Year after finishing sixth in the conference in scoring and rebounding while shooting 51.8 percent from the floor, good for second in the league.</p><p>In the win over Eastern on Wednesday, Harding led the team with 22 points and helped spark a huge second-half run after the Eagles had tied it up out of the break.</p><p>&#8220;Tony&#8217;s unbelievable,&#8221; Chandler said. &#8220;When I say I&#8217;m very hard on a kid, it&#8217;s because I know the potential he has. He has ice in his veins, and down at Eastern, he took over. Jason Kenny had a tough start and (Harding) carried us.&#8221;</p><p>Elsewhere in the league, King&#8217;s senior Dan Rutecki was a second-team All-Freedom selection while Wilkes sophomores Connor Evans and Marcus Robinson were honorable mentions.</p><p>First-year Delaware Valley boss Mark Seidenburg was named Coach of the Year.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Misericordia freshman Tony Harding was voted Freedom Conference Rookie of the Year by league coaches on Friday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_Miseri-WilkesBB_5-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Misericordia freshman Tony Harding was voted Freedom Conference Rookie of the Year by league coaches on Friday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Derek Levarse</p><p>dlevarse@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>UP NEXT</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Freedom Conference</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>championship</strong></p><p>DeSales at Misericordia</p><p>3 p.m., Saturday</p><p>Anderson Center</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Misericordia faces DeSales for Freedom Conference men’s basketball title