INDIANAPOLIS — This is part of the deal in March. For every bunch of happy survive-and-advancers hugging each other in absolute joy, another group sits in the locker room with their hearts ripped out. We have already vividly seen what that looks like this month.
We have seen Navy win the Patriot League regular season by six games and then get knocked out of the tournament by a 40-foot buzzer beater for Boston University. “That’s March,” coach Jon Perry said afterward. “I have been there before. It’s not easy to take.”
The Midshipmen seniors whose last NCAA tournament hopes expired that night are not weighing pro offers now. They’re headed for aviation and surface warfare training, their sendoff from college basketball a punch in the gut.
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We have seen Central Arkansas magically stay alive in the ASUN title game with one of the great individual postseason efforts of recent years — 49 points from Camren Hunter, including 20 in a row the last 3:11 of regulation. That wiped out an 11-point Queens (NC) lead to force overtime. All the fairy tale needed was a happy ending and Camren Hunter is a March folk hero. But then, reality. Queens won 98-93.
“It hurts,” coach John Shulman said. “We came a long ways to get to this point, and we were really close… But God, we dug deep. We were down nine with two to play and found a way. Our kids were exhausted, but what they did for UCA, and what they did for Conway, and what they did for our program, that’s why it hurts.”
We have seen Georgia Southern go on a remarkable refuse-to-lose journey in the Sun Belt, winning five games in five days. All the 10th-seeded Eagles required for a truly historic Cinderella NCAA tournament bid for the ages was one more victory. Just one. But their luck and their legs ran out against Troy 77-61. “We just kind of did the impossible,” player Spudd Webb said.
And we saw Tuesday night at the Horizon League.
Two years ago, Detroit Mercy played 32 games and lost 31 of them. The announced crowd at the one victory was 611. As time ran out, a single fan rushed the court to celebrate. Last season, with Mark Montgomery, the new coach dedicated to rebuilding the program with Michigan kids, the Titans went 8-24.
Tuesday night, his hopes and plans in full motion, they were 10 minutes away from an NCAA tournament bid with a 12-point lead. What a story of revival theirs would be. Then darkness fell, and soon Wright State won 66-63 and celebrated a conference title on the court with loud music and the crowd roaring. You could hear the hubbub from the quiet hallway where a broken-hearted team slogged to its locker room, a party they had been disinvited to.
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Montgomery was once a Tom Izzo assistant and has been around the game long enough to understand how this month can work. Ah, so thrilling. Oh, so painful.
“I like the great parts of it and I like the memories that it brings,” he said. “Unfortunately as we used to say in my Michigan State days there’s only going to be one national champion. But the fight and watching guys be resilient and the ups and flows of the game, there’s no better sport. I hope I’m a part of it for a lot more years. Just seeing the guys elevate their game coming into February and March, that’s the beautiful thing about this sport.”
Four of his starters were Michigan men. The guard who nearly led the Titans to the NCAA tournament with 26 points, Orlando Lovejoy, is a Detroiter. The rebirth with native sons is real, no matter how much Tuesday hurt.
“It just means the world, just bringing back a program that I’ve been around my whole life,” Lovejoy said, “Just seeing how much of a difference one or two or three guys can make with a coach like this one. It feels amazing even though we lost. It feels good knowing we had the talent and we can do it with local guys.”
One defeat slammed on the brakes of this year’s surge, but that can’t cover the fact this program just went 17-15, only 24 months removed from 1-31.
“I’m old school,” Montgomery said. “You get a couple of players (via transfers) but if you’re going to build something special you’re going to have to bring some freshmen, some sophomores in and find a way to keep them. That’s just kind of the way I’m doing it. I’m not saying it’s right, wrong or indifferent.”
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In June he showed his team a video of Robert Morris cutting down the nets last year after winning the Horizon League tournament. “That was the vision to make sure we’re in this situation,” he said.
Tuesday night they very nearly were. But another team was doing that. A deserving team with a second-year coach who had to rework own his program after his top four scorers transferred. Clint Sargent started 10 different players for Wright State this season looking for answers.
That’s the way it is now in the Horizon Leagues of the world. There were 24 players last season who averaged in double figures in the conference and had eligibility remaining. Twenty of them transferred (One who didn’t was Lovejoy).
“There’s a reason why everybody cherry picks off this league to transfer up,” Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb said. “Because I think there’s clearly a lot of basketball talent. We’re like a feeder system for the big boys.”
Sargent had to count on those who did stay and add in newcomers, not mourn those who left. “I choose to see it as an opportunity. I think the moment you feel like you’re a victim you’re in trouble,” he said.
This kind of league with so many moving player pieces, anything might happen. Milwaukee was picked to win the conference in the preseason poll and finished tied for eighth. The two teams who played for the title Tuesday night were picked seventh and ninth.
The new champion coach is a father of five who is deeply grateful for the players who stayed with him after he went 15-18 his first season. “The let me fail a lot and they never flinched,” Sargent said. It’s a tale of persistence all around. The Raider with two critical game-changing, title-clinching 3-pointers was Logan Woods, who has had his playing time cut this season and didn’t have a point the first 38 minutes Tuesday. “The main thing is always stay in the fight, stay composed, never give up and stay resilient,” he said of how his confidence and enthusiasm remained strong even as his court time dwindled. “I’ll remember this every day of my life.”
So probably would the Detroit Titans, One court, two teams, two very different fates and feelings. It’s March.
