For America East Seniors, there was no tomorrow
by Sam Perkins
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – When the America East conference tournament tipped off this past Friday night, it was much like that of any other one-bid conference in the country: under-hyped, under-publicized, and under attended. Mid-majors (and perhaps more accurately “low-majors”) just don’t attract the fan base of power conferences. They don’t have the allure of producing National Champions or a plethora of future NBA players. However, in their own unique way, the America East conference is as fun and compelling as any conference in the country, as you would be hard-pressed to find a collective group of players who play with more heart, more determination, and more pure passion than those who took the floor this past weekend in Binghamton.
There are no delusions of grandeur amongst America East basketball players. Future NBA players are rarer than once in a blue moon: only four current NBA players have spent any time in the America East conference, and only one, Jose Juan Barea, played in the conference within the past five years. Most will be wearing shirts and ties once their college careers are done, and the closest they will get to prime time is as a spectator in the stands, or by catching the highlights on the nightly news. A rare few will be able to make some decent cash playing professionally in Europe, but with that lifestyle comes the isolation of being alone in a foreign land, and overseas basketball is a job without the camaraderie and bonds that come with the college game. The here and now of college basketball is as good as it gets, and those who took the floor in Binghamton played with a passion that conveyed this.
Nowhere was the passion and desire more evident than in the conference’s seniors, for all of whom a loss would mean the end of their college career. That’s why Vermont’s Timmy McCrory took the court for six minutes and somehow managed to swat one final shot into the seats despite a badly separated shoulder. It’s why Jon Iati, coming off of serious lower back surgery, flung himself into the seats after a loose ball that he had no chance at corralling. And it’s why Mike Christensen took multiple elbows from Warren McClendon, whom outweighed him by roughly sixty pounds.
One loss would end their dreams: the chance to reach the “big dance,” which drives every player in the conference, and the chance to simply be able to lace of their sneakers and take the floor for one more day. But what truly makes these players, and this conference, so special is the kind of individuals playing for their final time in Binghamton, and the stories that each of their distinctive careers tell not only about their love of the game, but of what kind of men they are.
The one common bond between them, however, is how much their college basketball experience has meant to them, and how much it hurt to watch it vanish in upstate New York. “Our time here was a struggle, we were just trying to win, to win games, but I wouldn’t have rather been through it with anybody else,” reflected Stony Brook senior Ricky Lucas following his team’s 76-60 loss to UMBC.
“You knew that this could be your last game, so you just had to give it everything that you got,” said Albany senior Brian Lillis after playing 45 minutes in the Great Danes’ overtime loss to Boston University, before adding, “It was my last game, I was full of energy, I didn’t want to come out. Coach asked me a couple times if I wanted to come out. I wanted to make sure I went down with a fight.”
Few players have had more of an impact on their programs when it comes to leadership than Vermont senior Kyle Cieplicki, the only three year team-captain in Vermont basketball history, whom has set the standard for Catamounts during his time in the green and gold. But even after holding back tears as the final seconds of his career ticked away, it was never lost on Cieplicki just how special his experience in Burlington has been.
“The past few weeks, obviously it’s been hard not to think about it, but it’s been great,” said Cieplicki. “I’ve been able to meet a lot of great people and learn from a lot of great people, a lot of coaches, and I’ve played with great guys. It’s really been a great experience and I couldn’t ask for anything more, except another win I guess.”
What was also evident was not only the impact that college basketball has had on these young men, but the lasting impact that they have made on their team, their school, and their head coaches, and just how special the relationship can be between a head coach and his players.
“You don’t really appreciate what you have until it’s gone,” said a choked up Albany head coach Will Brown, in talking about seniors Lillis, Iati, and Brent Wilson. “Those guys have meant a lot to this program.”
“I’m sad for our seniors” said Vermont head coach Mike Lonergan following the Catamounts 73 to 64 loss to UMBC. “They’re classy guys, they’re great guys, and I think they all got a lot out of what they had talent-wise. Timmy McCrory, finally got him playing the best basketball of his career, putting up a couple double-doubles. And he was a hard guy to motivate – he was a laid back southern guy, but he was playing really well, and that’s why I feel bad for him getting hurt on senior day. Chad, like I said, the intangibles don’t show up – he dives for loose balls, the slowest guy for us but he’s guarding the quickest guy on the other team. And then Kyle is a coach’s dream, you can coach him, you can be hard on him, he understands the game, he gets it.”
“I’m real proud of our three seniors. I have three great guys, Ricky is graduating here in the spring, and has just been tremendous. Manu played in the Olympics for the Angolan national team, and I’ve just been proud to coach these guys, along with Mitchell Beauford, who’s been here for five years. First class kids, and three kids that are all graduating and graduating on time,” said Stony Brook head coach Steve Pikiell about seniors Emanuel Neto, Mitchell Beauford, and Ricky Lucas following his team’s loss to UMBC.
First-year Binghamton head coach Kevin Broadus only had one year with his seniors, and the Bearcats at times enjoyed and at times endured a season of peaks and valleys, but despite little time with a coach whom they were just getting to know and sometimes disagreed with, Broadus’ three seniors left a distinct impression on him. “We had some good senior leadership with Mike, Richie, and Gio. I wish them well in life, and I’m pretty sure they will do well,” Broadus reflected.
Perhaps no one player in the tournament was more compelling than Stony Brook’s Emanuel Neto, a big man from Angola with an even bigger heart, whom has gone through more this year than most could ever imagine. For those who are unfamiliar with Neto’s story, he came to America for the first time four years ago, and after two years at a junior college, transferred to Stony Brook. Neto’s fiancée and daughter live in Texas, and outside of his basketball family he is alone on Long Island, with no family nearby.
Neto’s career at Stony Brook has been solid but unspectacular, while playing for a team that has finished last and second-to-last in his two seasons on the conference. Off the court, Neto’s life was thrown upside down this season as his mother, the driving influence in his life, suffered from life-threatening kidney failure. Neto’s team and school rallied around him, as Stony Brook’s medical department pledged 49 different doctors to aid in his mother’s kidney transplant, and also found a donor in his aunt. However, such aid would violate NCAA regulations governing student athletes. After petitioning the NCAA, a body known largely as a heartless entity in cases such as Neto’s, amazingly the NCAA gave Stony Brook the green light to help. However, it was too late as Neto’s mother passed away shortly there after. Somehow Neto found the inner strength to return to his team, where he has established himself as the emotional leader, and played out his season with his mother in his heart.
Watching Neto and the Seawolves gut out an overtime victory against Maine, and then give everything they had versus top-seeded UMBC was a sight, as the Seawolves never once played like the conference doormat that they have been over the past two seasons. Neto left everything he had on the court, banging against 310-pound Brian Andre for thirty minutes against Maine, and scoring 13 points to go with five rebounds and a block in his final game against UMBC and the best front-court in the conference.
Neto’s emotional salute to the Stony Brook pep band and fans was moving, but his press conference was a downright tear-jerker, as you would have to be lacking a heart to not be brought close to tears by his words regarding his time as a Seawolf, as he had nothing but unabashed thanks for his school, coaches, and teammates.
“This school is great, the athletic department, the people in our school, everybody is great, my teammates, and Coach Pikiell has been a father to me for two years. I’ve been here by myself, no family at all, I have my teammates and coach Pikiell, and my school staff, that’s all I have, but they have been brothers to me,” he began. Neto then added, “It’s been by far one of the toughest years of my life… the help that people have given to me, I live in New York, my girlfriend and my daughter live in Texas, and being away from them, and then knowing that my mother was sick the whole time, and then the school offered to help. You just can’t imagine what Coach Pikiell, and Mr. Fiore, and everybody did to try to help us, to help me and my mother, it was just great. There is nothing I can ever do to show how grateful I am.”
While Neto’s farewell may have been the most gut-wrenching, it certainly was not the only touching moment from the weekend, as it seemed that every senior stepped their game up in the face of the prospect of their career coming to an end. Binghamton’s Mike Gordon will go down as one of the best players in school history, and the ultimate team player. Gordon began the season looking like a first team All-Conference guard, but a terrible back injury left him severely hobbled.
But Gordon, the ultimate gamer, toughed out the season despite being unable to practice, and earned the respect from teammates and opponents alike. Gordon poured in 23 points in Binghamton’s 65-57 quarterfinal loss, the last game of his college career. It would be fitting to say that Gordon earned the respect of his opponents in his final game, except that Gordon had already done that a long time ago. Watching Gordon dive after loose balls, taking shots from long range, and generally refusing to let his team give an inch down to the wire is impossible to put into words, as was the farewell salute he gave to his home crowd. “It’s a sad feeling, I’ve been here for four years now, and the crowd and the community have been behind me, and the program, one hundred percent, through our ups and downs. I just wanted to show my appreciation for them, for the coaches and the other teams, they showed respect and I just gave my respect back,” said Gordon.
Vermont’s Mike Trimboli shared an embrace and several words with Gordon after the game, and listening to Trimboli speak about Gordon echoed the impact that Gordon has had on teammates and opponents alike.
“Me and him are really close, we’re good friends on and off the court, and I just wanted to let him know that he played his heart out, and that I really respect him and his game, and that I hope he can do great things after this,” said the junior guard.
Gordon’s influence was no more evident than on his head coach, Kevin Broadus, whom took the team over prior to the season. The combination of a first-year coach, and a fourth-year senior who spent the first three years of his career playing for someone else could have been disastrous, but in the face of change Gordon was never more of a team player.
“He was a treat to coach,” said Broadus. “He was a coach on the court. He sounded like he believed everything I told him. He put forth one-hundred percent every day, lunch pail, hard-hat on, punched the time clock and gave his all, and if we could get thirteen Mike Gordons, we will win this league.”
Broadus added, “He’s one of the best players I have seen, in his own way, the way he goes about things, the way he goes about his business on and off the court. Those are the kind of student-athletes we want. Thank god, he’s a good kid, a great kid, and I am sure that whatever he does, he is going to be successful because he gives one-hundred percent.”
“Honestly, it hasn’t really hit me yet,” said New Hampshire senior Mike Christensen following a last-second loss to Hartford. “It seems like yesterday, two years ago, I was sitting here after we beat Hartford. It’s tough man, especially losing like that, if there is a way to lose, you want to lose close. We played hard, we made big plays, I love the guys I played with, it’s tough, a tough way to go out.”
Christensen is a player whom has never gotten the credit he deserves, as he played his heart out for four years in a situation that no athlete ever wants to enter. New Hampshire was in a rebuilding phase for all four years of his eligibility. Worse yet, the Wildcats seem poised to turn the corner this off-season from plucky spoilers to legitimate contenders – one year too late for Christensen. Christensen may have worn his heart on his sleeve, and at times let his emotions get the best of him, but he could never be faulted for not giving his all. He couldn’t have given more than he did in his final game as he poured in twenty points while being forced to cover Hartford man-hulk Warren McClendon, twice rejecting McClendon dunk attempts. Christensen’s last time on the court earned him high praise from head coach Bill Herrion, with whom Christensen’s relationship was at times rocky.
“A credit to Mike Christensen, he played,” said Herrion. “That’s how a senior is supposed to play. I told him that in the locker room, I said if you’re going to look back on your last game as a college player, that’s a hell of a game to look back on because he really played his tail off tonight.”
But Binghamton didn’t end in heartbreak for all seniors, as two teams remain alive, with their hopes of an NCAA Tournament bid and putting off retirement for one more day on the line. For UMBC seniors Cavell Johnson, Brian Hodges, and Ray Barbosa, an NCAA tournament appearance has been a goal for their entire careers. The thought of being one game away, combined with the reality of a career ending, brought Barbosa to tears in the post game press conference following UMBC’s last-minute victory over Vermont.
Another touching story is that of Hartford senior Rich Baker, who has been the backbone of Hartford’s basketball team for five years. Baker looked to be a game-changing point guard as a freshman five years ago, but has spent much of his career on the bench as a result of a slew of injuries. A hip injury early in this year forced Baker to be little more than a glorified spectator for much of the season, and would have ended the careers of many players in his position. However, Baker has pulled through, and provided invaluable minutes during Hartford’s post-season run to the championship game despite his hip refusing to heal, his motivation being one last chance at achieving a dream, an NCAA Tournament appearance. “It means everything to me,” reflected Baker on the possibility of making the NCAA Tournament.
One thing is for sure, it has been a wild and memorable ride for Emanuel Neto, Mitchell Beauford, Ricky Lucas, Brian Andre, Richard Forbes, Giovanni Olomo, Mike Gordon, Mike Christensen, Shawn Tobey, Jon Iati, Brent Wilson, Brian Lillis, Kyle Cieplicki, Timmy McCrory, and Chad Powlovich. But all good things must come to an end, and this past weekend in Binghamton, for this amazing group of seniors it did. Ray Barbosa, Cavell Johnson, Brian Hodges, Rich Baker, and Brian Glowiak have delayed the inevitable another day, but sooner or later it will end, and all of these amazing seniors, who don’t play for a future paycheck, endorsement deals, or face time on TNT, are going to have to deal with a huge void in their lives, as Mike Christensen put it best: “This is hard, man, where do you go from here?”
