To become a mid-major basketball fan means being born with a
healthy sense of self-awareness. We are ever cognizant that, generally
speaking, those poor folks who root for BCS programs view us with bemusement,
if they acknowledge our existence at all.
We also know that much of our fandom is repetitive. Every
year, with almost no exception, the entire season comes down to the weekend of
the conference tournament. Because we realize that the odds of winning the
ultimate prize are slim even in the best of years, we believe in savoring
regular season moments others might not even acknowledge.
And in doing so, we are sensitive to the idea that we’re
going to the well too many times. How often can we declare that a January game
was a multi-act melodrama with a Wagnerian soundtrack? At what point do we
become a self-parody in gushing over a small stretch of games that are unlikely
to add up to something tangible in March?
But here’s the beautiful, Yogi-esque secret of mid-major
basketball: Even when everything’s the same, it’s still different and new.
Sure, we’ve seen the Dutchmen stumble into CAA play in
January looking like a team that might never actually win a game, only to
immediately turn their season around over a three- or four-game span that
includes a resounding win at home over one of the CAA’s best teams.
We’ve seen a star senior lay claim to his CAA Player of the
Year candidacy by fueling a stirring comeback from a double-digit deficit at
home. We’ve seen little moments that don’t necessarily show up in the boxscore
of exciting victories, but may lay the foundation for future prosperity.
We just haven’t seen ANY of this in three seasons. That’s a
lifetime in college basketball. And given all the crap the Flying Dutchmen
program has endured in the previous two seasons, what happened in January and
February of 2011—way back when Charles Jenkins channeled The Wolf in leading
the Dutchmen to a 14-4 conference record that included seismic comeback wins
over James Madison and William & Mary as well as a cathartic trouncing of
George Mason—feels like it was experienced by another fanbase, one that never
had to question whether or not it was actually worthwhile to root for a college
basketball program.
So yeah. While there was nothing new in the historical sense
about the three-game winning streak from Jan. 11 through Jan. 22 that
momentarily vaulted the Dutchmen into second place in the CAA, it all FELT
decidedly new and magical to us.
The 75-71 win over College of Charleston on Jan. 11—when the
Dutchmen overcame a 14-point deficit to record their biggest comeback win since
the 92-90 win over James Madison on Jan. 24, 2011—was sparked by senior star
Zeke Upshaw, whose back story is far different yet perhaps even more compelling
than Jenkins’ was.
While Jenkins was perhaps the most established superstar in
the country, Upshaw has come out of nowhere—or at least the end of the bench at
Illinois State—to become the go-to guy the Dutchmen have lacked since Jenkins
graduated.
Upshaw drained 3-pointers on consecutive trips late in the
first half to begin the comeback. Those six points were more than he scored in
55 of his 62 games at Illinois State, and were perhaps the baskets that infused
him with the self-confidence to carry himself like the best player on the team.
“I think Zeke just finally said ‘Let me start making some
plays for my team—I’m not going to wait around for something, I’m going to be
aggressive and make plays,” Joe Mihalich said afterward. “That’s what the great
players do. He basically said ‘Give me the ball. Give me the ball.’ Went down
there, made a couple tough shots.”
Upshaw finished with 22 points against Charleston. Four
nights later, he tied a school record with seven 3-pointers in a 69-64 win over
UNC Wilmington. He had just 17 3-pointers in three seasons at Illinois State.
“I met with Zeke after the FDU game [an 86-67 loss on Jan. 2],”
Mihalich said. “He said ‘Coach I’m just not used to this.’ It was an incredibly
profound statement, because nothing could be more true. He’s not used to being
the best player on the team, the leading scorer on the team and having somebody
climbing him all the time because they [expect] so much.”
While the newcomer Upshaw scored 16 of his points after the
Dutchmen fell behind by 14, Stephen Nwaukoni—the only holdover left from the
2010-11 season, when he capped the James Madison win with the decisive free
throws with 3.9 seconds left in overtime—hit six free throws in the final 77
seconds, including the free throw that gave the Dutchmen the lead for good and
a free throw that iced the game with less than two seconds left.
“Freshman year was a long time ago,” a grinning Nwaukoni
said as he dragged out “long.”
The Dutchmen generated some resiliency prior to Nwaukoni’s
go-ahead free throw, and some will immediately after it. In the 11 minutes and
54 seconds before Nwaukoni’s free throw, the Dutchmen had 14 possessions in
which they could have tied the score or gone ahead. They scored just 14 points
and were 6-of-13 from the line on those possessions, none of which ended with
the Dutchmen taking the lead.
After draining the first free throw, Nwaukoni
missed the second, but Moussa Kone grabbed the rebound, was fouled
and hit the first free throw before missing the second. Nwaukoni promptly
grabbed the rebound and hit both free throws to give the Dutchmen a 69-65 lead
in a three-possession sequence that took just one second off the clock.
Just as Upshaw put to use his new-found aggressiveness
against UNC Wilmington, the Dutchmen yielded immediate benefits from their
collective grittiness when they blew all of a 10-point second half lead at
Trask Coliseum. But the Seahawks failed to take the lead, even though they had seven
possessions in which they had an opportunity to do so.
The resiliency manifested itself again last Wednesday, when
the Dutchmen not only bounced back from a resounding loss to SMU but buried
William & Mary in the second half of a 77-60 win. The Dutchmen lost Jordan
Allen to a broken nose and a concussion on the final play of the first half,
fell behind 35-34 in the first half-minute of the second half but went on a
17-0 run and eventually led the Tribe by as many as 23.
It wasn’t as cathartic a victory as the 87-74 trouncing of
George Mason on Jan. 5, 2011, but routing William & Mary—which was one of
just two CAA teams with multiple double-digit league wins—offered the same type
we-need-to-pinch-ourselves hope that the win over George Mason offered.
Look, opening 3-1 in what is left of the CAA in 2013-14 is a
whole lot different than opening up 8-1 in 2010-11. But the path between then
and now reinforces why we should enjoy it just as much.
We know not to assume that the little moments from this
start will ever add up to anything. Three years ago, when Shemiye McLendon
provided instant offense off the bench and literally did not miss a clutch free
throw as a freshman—he was 15-of-15 from the line in the final five minutes of
games in which the two teams were separated by 10 points or less—I thought we
were watching Hofstra’s next homegrown 1,000-point scorer. He scored 370 points
before transferring to South Florida.
And when Mo Cassara raced up and down the home sideline
during the win over George Mason—pissing off a dour Jaime Larranaga, who
pleaded the entire second half for Cassara to be issued a technical for leaving
the coach’s box—we thought we were watching a coach whose will to win was
trickling down to his players. Alas, most of the players Cassara recruited
cared much less about him and basketball than the players he inherited.
Maybe the resiliency and will displayed in the three-game
winning streak will be as hard to maintain as it was to develop. And maybe the
impact from Mihalich’s halftime tirade on Jan. 11—when he first screamed at
officials and then CAA deputy commissioner of basketball Ron Bertovich after no
whistle was blown when Upshaw was mugged going to the basket in the final
seconds—will be limited only to the immediate aftermath. (Charleston out-fouled
Hofstra, 18-6, in the final 20 minutes)
Maybe Saturday afternoon—when the Dutchmen scored the first
seven points of the game before falling to Northeastern, 70-57—will prove to be
the end of this 2014 resurgence. With a brutal week ahead—at Towson tonight,
home for Drexel Wednesday, at Charleston Saturday—the Dutchmen could fall to
3-4 just as quickly as they improved to 3-1.
Of course, we’ll hope it was just a hiccup, as it was in
January 2011, when the previously unbeaten Dutchmen recovered from a 75-64 loss
to Old Dominion—a game in which Hofstra scored the first 11 points—by winning
their next three games.
But if Saturday was the start of reality setting in for an
undermanned team, so what? Players and fans alike will still have those little
moments that seemed so big as they happened.
Upshaw will have the satisfaction of having maximized his
unexpected fifth year of college basketball. Nwaukoni, who knows more than anyone
where Hofstra basketball once was and how far it has fallen, gets to smile like
he did as a freshman, and perhaps embark upon a senior season sprint similar to
the one authored by Roberto Gittens in 2000-01. Nwaukoni had a career-high 15
rebounds against Charleston and is averaging 12.8 rebounds a game in six league
contests this month.
As for us? After watching every high-profile transfer on the
Hofstra bench flame out in spectacular fashion last year, we get the
satisfaction of knowing that everyone else in the country will be searching for
the next Zeke Upshaw while we get to enjoy watching the FIRST Zeke Upshaw. We
get to see a good kid like Nwaukoni remind us that the bad kids were the
aberration, and not the norm.
Whether it ended Saturday, or lasts for another seven weeks,
we get to remember what it felt like to find magic in the commonplace, to savor
good wins like we would good wine, to daydream of unlikely CAA Tournament runs
and to walk into the Arena with a sense of excitement instead of trudging in
out of a sense of obligation.
It’s nothing new. It’s all new.
“Can’t wait for the next game now,” Mihalich said Jan. 11.
Finally, neither can we.
