WOW, WHAT A WEEKEND! I don’t know where to begin, but I do know that it’s Monday and it is great to still be ALIVE in the “bracket of death”! While most college kids will spend SB09 in Panama City, on a cruise, at home, or at a friend’s grandparent’s house in Naples — we on the Wash U hoops team are glad to be spending the majority of our spring break in the Northwest ‘burbs of Chicago. There’s nothing like playing in the NCAA Tourney, even if it comes at the price of my teammates getting tan (I’ve got nice bronze skin anyway, so who needs a vacation—right???).

When the pairings first came out Monday, I’m not going to lie, I was a little upset with the way the NCAA handled the Midwest and West regions. This is with no disrespect to any of the programs from the East or Northeast, etc. but it was extremely hard trying to explain to friends and family how and why the top seven ranked teams in the country only one could possibly make it to the final four. They’d say, wait so it’d be like if Pitt, UNC, UCONN, Duke and Louisville all were in the same regional—and still not believe me when I said “YES!!!”

After a good hour of pouting about not being able to play at home (since our women hosted) and being sent to the site of one of our two losses all year, we all flipped a switch and stopped feeling sorry for ourselves. I think we realized that when it was game time on Friday against Lawrence, they weren’t going to feel sorry for us so it wouldn’t do us any good to feel sorry for ourselves.

Preparing for Lawrence was really tough because of how well they play together as a team. I think they’re a lot like us. While we felt like our scout team did a good job preparing us, at the beginning of the game it was quickly realized how impossible it was for a scout team to really imitate ‘their stuff’ since they run their motion so well. They read the defense, took advantage of any mistakes we made defensively and made us pay when we didn’t get back in transition. While almost no one our team could hit a shot, luckily we had A.T. on our side.

I don’t know if I can really describe what AT has been able to do for us this season. If you’ve never seen him play–he plays the game the way it’s supposed to be played—at both ends of the court. He’s always been automatic as a spot up shooter—but now he’s a flat out scorer… he leads our team in blocks and even yanked down 10 boards on Saturday. He’s got the longest, gangliest (is that a word?) arms—which is why we say “Go, Go Gadget Arms!” when he gets his hands on balls he has no business getting. Bottom line is that he can hoop!

Anyway, we overcame some miserable shooting from myself and Tyler to somehow sneak away with a win on Friday. As I wrote about last year, the tournament is about surviving and advancing—and that is what we did on Friday. It was one of those games that I really felt like we got out played for 35 minutes or so overall, but thanks to a few good runs, a big time three from A.T., and some timely misses, we marched on to Saturday.

Watching the Elmhurst vs. UW-Whitewater game following ours was unbelievable. I’ve been to Salem the past two years, and that game featured two teams that could have taken down at least half the talent I’ve seen in the Final Four. It’s truly a shame (among a lot of other word selections I could’ve used instead of a shame) that those two played in the first round. It was an awesome atmosphere, it’s just too bad for Elmhurst’s seniors that it had to end like that—because they are a team that deserved to play more than one game in the NCAA Tourney.

With a turnaround of less than 24-hours we had to prepare for our most talented opponent of the year. UW-Whitewater featured some big time athletes inside and on the wings and our coaches did a great job getting a game plan together to help neutralize their athleticism. We jumped out to an early 11-0 lead and played some great basketball. We really frustrated them by doing a few different things defensively and even pushed our lead to 18 in the second half.

As all good teams do, UWW made a big time run midway through the second half. Somehow we held them off and only gave up the lead for 17 seconds on our way to another W. Again, we may have been the better team most of the night, but UWW had chances to win the game. We hit some timely shots, made free-throws and got a little lucky—which is sometimes better than being good this time of year. UWW was the most talented group of individuals, position by position, I’ve seen play at this level in the past four years—without a doubt. Survive and advance.

Looking forward to next week—it should be an incredible game Friday night. Wheaton obviously is a tremendous team and I’m looking forward to playing in a really fun atmosphere. We got to see them earlier in the season when they played at Webster in St. Louis and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t watched two or three of their games on web cast. Between their threats inside and out—it’ll be a challenge, but one I know we’re up for!

Four more.

Take care,
Sean

P.S. Shout out to my boys Dylan Richter and Tom Blount—two people that have been major contributors on our team that are now out for the year. Dylan broke his foot in the first round game against Lawrence (and then proceeded to NAIL a three-ball before coming out) and Tom is having shoulder surgery this week. It’s no fun sitting on the bench from injury (I’d know from experience) but I know both of these guys are still pulling for us big time. GETCHUUUUUUUUUU SUM.

In his final season with the Amherst basketball team, Ben Kaplan decided to put his writing skills to good use by keeping a running diary of the Lord Jeffs’ 2009 NCAA Tournament experience.

Last April, my fellow members of the Amherst basketball Class of ’09 and I won the lip sync contest, an annual choreography competition with a valuable prize – the first pick in room draw. We successfully made fools of ourselves and won with our skit entitled “Road Trip” with Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” recurring as the refrain.

Little did we know that our theme choice for lip sync would also be the theme of our last season of Amherst hoops, perfectly describing the 2008-09 Lord Jeffs. When the schedules were released late last summer, it was clear that the unprecedented seven-game road trip spanning from mid-January to mid-February would define our season.

I can’t help but remember Wilson, the wise neighbor in television’s Home Improvement, once telling Tim “the Toolman” Taylor, face half-hidden by the fence, “When we’re home, we dream of great adventure, and when we’re on great adventures, we dream of home.” There were definitely times during the seven-game trip (which included three games in Maine) that we wished we were back home.

On the fourth game of the trip, we lost to Colby after erasing a double-digit deficit, also losing starter Steve Wheeler to a rolled ankle suffered during a desperation heave at the end of the first half. We then squandered a 19-point lead in the second half of the next game at Rhode Island College, dropping to 3-2 on the trip and jeopardizing our NCAA status.

Our futures remained muddled the rest of the regular season and through the NESCAC Championship, which took our traveling band of basketball players up to Middlebury, Vermont. Every member of our team had had the good fortune of never playing a NESCAC tournament game on the road, so the weekend was a first for all of us, albeit a first that fit perfectly with our season’s theme.

After an emotional win over Williams to take the season series, we lost in the finals against a fired up Middlebury squad and our season hung in the balances. Twenty-one uneasy hours later, we learned we were off of the bubble and into the tournament. In Division I, bubble teams often gather with their teammates to watch the selection show live, cameras monitoring their every move. For us, guys found out this past Monday in a variety of ways – some watched the selection show online, some ducked out of class to “go to the bathroom” and checked the brackets on the nearest computer, and some just waited to hear from a teammate. I figured we had secured a bid when I heard my classmate Glenn Wong running down the halls in our dorm shouting, “WOOOOO!! Let’s GOOOOOO!!!” We had lived to play another day, and we would be playing at another site. The Road Crew would take to the streets once more.

Getting into the tournament excited everyone. Even though this marks Amherst’s 10th straight NCAA appearance, it never gets old for anyone, especially the first-years who were experiencing D3’s “playing house” version of March Madness for the first time. Our draw, however, really excited our coaches, who got the opportunity to bother new coaches for clips they would use to scout new teams. The four teams playing at Richard Stockton College in southern New Jersey span four states and four of the eight regions the NCAA uses to break up men’s basketball teams – Stockton from the Atlantic region; their opponent, RPI, from New York and the East region; our matchup, Gwynedd-Mercy, from Pennsylvania and the Middle Atlantic region; and us from the Northeast region. It is, as Coach Hixon said Monday at practice, “Truly a national tournament.”

Another person who our draw excited was Bob, who has been driving our bus since our last Maine trip nearly a month ago. A jovial man who keeps old Three Stooges episodes running on the bus DVD system after wins, Bob told us before our Williams game last Saturday, “You guys better win. I wanna work tomorrow!” Well, Bob, we got you more work, and plenty of time to continue those conversations with our coaching staff at the front of the bus during the five-plus hour drive to Pomona.

After our long bus ride, which guys spent napping, eating, writing papers, reading, watching movies, listening to music, engaging in conversation, or any combination of those activities, we pulled into the Comfort Inn for a quick stop before our 7:45 p.m. practice. During NCAA Tournament practices, visiting teams get 90 minutes of closed-door court time, which we partook in after Friday’s foe, Gwynedd-Mercy, got in its final tune-up. Our practice consisted of the standard warm-up, shooting and scrimmage as we quickly got acclimated with our new surroundings. In order to succeed as the Road Crew, you have to adapt to new settings quickly, and as the shots started falling with more frequency, it was clear that we had gotten used to the deep shooting background at Stockton’s gym. Hopefully they keep falling for us throughout the weekend.

Our schedule for Friday includes an 11 a.m. brunch, probably at the Denny’s a couple of us enjoyed for dinner (the best part of going to Denny’s with the knowledge you’ll be there the next morning is that it makes the timeless breakfast vs. dinner inner struggle a lot easier to decide). Following brunch, we’ll head to Stockton for a shootaround and a review of the scouting report. It’s the same old away game routine for the team that has made its home on the road this season — just a group of vagabonds trying to keep the journey going, hoping to take this road as far as it goes.

It’s only been a few weeks but I feel like I have a lot to write about—so here’s blog #4 from an airplane someplace between Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

Home Weekend: We had two home games last weekend in conference against Case Western and Emory. The UAA is a very different conference than any other in the country because of the geography involved. We play Friday nights and Sunday mornings every weekend–this leads to very different game atmospheres for the two games. Last Friday night we tipped-off at 8 p.m. in front of 1,500 or so Wash U faithful— including about 1,000 students. Sunday morning against Emory, in the same gym, there were maybe 100 people in the stands at 11 a.m. for tip-off–probably four hundred more got there by half time.

It isn’t hard to get fired up to play in front of a crowd like Friday’s—unfortunately Case Western was a little more fired up than we expected. They shot the heck out of the ball in the first half, but we weathered the storm and pulled ahead with great defense in the second half.

Sunday we got off to a great start against Emory and never looked back. Coach Edwards says “UAA championships are won on Sundays” and I really agree with him. The teams that can be ready to play at a.m. and focused on the task at hand win those games.

Taking the road: This past weekend started our rough stretch of four-straight road games. Starting Thursday we were going to be spending six of 10 nights in hotels in Rochester, Pittsburgh, Boston & New York City. Seriously–that’s like an NBA schedule. Playing in the UAA we take for granted the amazing opportunity of being able to pick up and leave school to travel to some the greatest cities in the country—but when you’re on the road like this it gets tough between missing four days of class and not sleeping in your own bed.

The Rochester/Carnegie Mellon trip has not been good to us since I’ve been here. I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of two Final Four teams and another team that JUST missed the tournament—and those teams were a combined 1-5 on this trip, never winning at Rochester. Last year’s national championship team got smacked by CMU, on a Sunday, by 30+ points, so this was a big trip for us since they (UR & CMU) were both 2-1 in conference going into the weekend– with us at 3-0.

On Thursday, we met at our gym at 4:15 a.m. for our travel day from hell—a 6 a.m. flight from St. Louis to Baltimore…another flight Baltimore to Buffalo…and a two hour bus ride from Buffalo to Rochester. Somehow we got enough rest Thursday after our practice for our Friday night game (8:30 pm to 9:30 am sleeping—not bad!). We took advantage of an undermanned Rochester team and never took our foot off the gas—not too many teams win at the Palestra, so even if they were missing the conference’s leading scorer it was still a good win. We took an early bus ride Saturday morning from Rochester to Pittsburgh for a practice at CMU to prepare for our game this morning.

The game today was a big-time battle. Both teams traded punches in the first half and got into some foul trouble. They hit some shots—then we hit some shots and had a seven-point halftime lead. They then cut it to three points early in the second half—but over a two-minute span, we went on a 17-0 (yes, that’s right 17-0!!!) run to put the game to 20. That run was the most fun I’ve had playing basketball in a long, long time. Our defense was clicking, leading to turnovers, leading to fast-breaks, leading to wide open lay-ups and threes–it was just awesome. That run was all we needed and we held on for the win.

Rootin’ for the Women: Another cool thing about the UAA is how close we get with the women’s team. We travel together every weekend, watch every one of their games and go to dinners together on the road. So, just because we beat Rochester on Friday we were all bummed and kinda quiet on the bus to Pittsburgh Saturday a.m. since they lost a tough one that they almost had the night before–we call that a “sad” bus. But, since we both won on Sunday (and UR women lost to Chicago) we’re both now either in or tied for first place in the conference–so now I’m flying on “happy” plane with lots of laughter and–dare I say–flirting.

Notes:
– Congrats to Coach Edwards who was honored at the Baseball writers of Missouri’s banquet last week – you can see him in the background of this picture with some guy named Albert Pujols.

– Congrats to my roomie and best bud Tyler Nading on setting the all-time fouls record at Wash U… we’re all so proud of you!

– Before our Emory game I asked the refs about the trivia question I had last blog–and they were 1,000% sure that once the ball hits the ground it is NO LONGER a FG attempt and wouldn’t count if it were after the buzzer—and that it would be a two if time wasn’t an issue.

–On a personal note–it meant a lot to me that EVERY single guy on the Varsity team came to our team’s JV game on Monday night. When we were freshmen, Tyler and I would be the ONLY one’s that played in the Varsity game (aside from the coaches) to go watch our teammates since it is traditionally on a Varsity day off. It really shows how tight this team is, how the program has evolved and changed in my four years, and how every player on this roster is pulling for everyone else.

–HUGE game for us on Friday night @ Brandeis (4-1 in conference). If we can get a W, everyone else in the UAA will have at least two losses, putting us in good shape since five of our last seven are at home. We want to do damage again in March, but we are hungry for a UAA championship since we didn’t get one last year!

Take care,
Sean