In the beginning there was hope for a date to the Big Dance, the NCAA Tournament. In the end there was none.
Not at Providence College. Not at Bryant University or Brown. Certainly not at the University of Rhode Island.
Brown came close. Yes, Brown, with its 13-17 record, its 38-year tournament drought, its history of basketball futility. That Brown was 1 second and 1 point from the Ivy League championship Sunday afternoon. A heartbeat, a breath from an automatic bid.
But 1 second was all the hoop gods needed to spurn the Bears again. Yale’s Matt Knowling found an open spot on the baseline just to the left of the lane, caught a pass, put up a soft uncontested left-handed floater and watched it kiss the twine as time expired.
Yale 62. Brown 61.
While the Bulldogs leaped in disbelief and their fans stormed the court, the poor Bears stood in disbelief and wondered what had just happened.
Compounding the Pain I: Brown led 60-54 with 27 seconds remaining but faltered while Yale closed with an 8-1 charge. Yale scored five points in the final 15 seconds. Brown’s Malachi Ndur missed a pair of free throws with 10 seconds left.
Compounding the Pain II: Yale is in the NCAA Tournament. Princeton, which Brown upset in the Ivy semifinals, and Cornell are in the NIT. Brown is at home on College Hill.
Providence College reached the semifinals of the Big East Tournament in New York, lost to second-seeded Marquette and still hoped to hear its name called on Selection Sunday. It did, but for the NIT, not the NCAA.
The Friars got what they deserved. They were a 10-10 team in the Big East. They did win 21 games and featured Devin Carter, the Big East player of the year. They needed a strong stretch run to get off the NCAA bubble and nearly did it. Coach Kim English took the high road when his Friars were shut out of the NCAA Tournament and declined to whine.
Compounding the Pain I: The Friars lost their best player, wing specialist Bryce Hopkins, to a torn ACL early in the season. They can only wonder how many more games they would have won with Hopkins in the lineup.
Compounding the Pain II: With Hopkins sidelined, Devin Carter seized the opportunity to lead PC. He played inspired basketball and at times took over games. People who know basketball better than I do are touting Carter as a high NBA draft pick. He missed the NIT contest against Boston College with an ankle injury. The Eagles won, 62-57, so the Friars are finished.
Bryant University is another team that could have folded early after coach Jared Grasso resigned for personal reasons. Assistant coach Phil Martelli Jr. stepped in, and his team stepped up. The Bulldogs won 20 games and reached the semifinals of the America East Tournament. They lost to UMass Lowell, which lost to Vermont in the championship game.
Realistically, the only way Bryant was going to the Big Dance was to win the America East title.
Compounding the Pain I: UMass Lowell and Bryant are old friends from their Division II days in the Northeast-10 Conference.
Compounding the Pain II: Earl Timberlake, an All-Conference selection, suffered a leg injury late in the season and did not play the America East semifinal loss.
At the University of Rhode Island, coach Archie Miller’s second season was a disaster. The Rams lost 20 games, tied with Fordham and Saint Louis for the most Ls in the Atlantic-10. Eight of those losses were on their own court at the Ryan Center.
Miller’s frustration was palpable during a stretch of seven consecutive losses and 12 losses in 14 games. William Geoghegan reported these Miller remarks in the Providence Journal:
“We just have some guys that, quite frankly, at the end of the day, don’t belong out there right now at this time of year – whether they belong here period. At the end of the day you have to represent a very proud program that has given a lot to you, that supports the hell out of you.”
Earlier in the streak – after a 23-point road loss at La Salle – Miller lamented his team’s lack of effort and attention to detail and said he was embarrassed by their performance.
Wow! Coaches seldom blast their players publicly like that. But in this day of pay for play in college athletics, we should expect more of that kind of talk. Later, as coaches usually do, he accepted responsibility for his team’s play. The irony in URI’s case is that Miller recruited this team, or welcomed players through the transfer portal.
