Holy Cross Honors Tradition, Win Overtime Thriller
WORCESTER, Mass. – From one standpoint, it doesn’t get any better than Sunday for those connected to Holy Cross basketball.
No, the Crusaders haven’t won a Patriot League title and the NCAA Tournament bid that comes with it – it’s too early for that. No, they didn’t score a win that would surely help them in trying to secure an at-large bid should they not win the Patriot League. No, they haven’t scored a major recruiting coup – although they did sign a player early who should help them.
But when the Crusaders pulled out a 73-69 victory over Saint Joseph’s in overtime in front of a packed house, it capped off an unforgettable day for some.
“The biggest thing for me is that this was a special day for our program, a special day for those four guys, who were not only great players but great people,” said head coach Ralph Willard, himself an alumnus of the school. “I saw guys from every era back here. I saw teammates, I saw guys I coached, I saw guys from the 80s that I just knew about, and it was just a great day. It was a great day.”
The four players Willard alluded to were honored at halftime, with their jerseys raised to the rafters. George Kaftan, Bob Cousy, Togo Palazzi and Tom Heinsohn were all on hand for the event and also met the current team in a special event held earlier away from the campus. They are the only former Crusaders to earn first team All-America honors twice, and each played on a national championship team.
Indeed, it’s easy to forget, given the great success of the University of Connecticut since Jim Calhoun took over and the years where UMass and Boston College had their share of success, that Holy Cross might have as deep a tradition of basketball as there is in New England. The school is one of just 16 to win both an NCAA and an NIT championship. The times have changed, but the program continues to have success, something that some players have noted as a reason for choosing the school.
That tradition is something Willard had to call on when his team was down 35-28 at halftime and wasn’t far from seeing the game get blown open. The Crusaders didn’t shoot in the flow of the offense for a lot of the first half, but led for a while since Saint Joseph’s was slow to get going at the offensive end.
“I told our guys before the game, at halftime and after the game, ‘You know what, we need to honor what this program stands for and has stood for in the past, and we need to honor it one way – by our effort,'” said Willard. “I told the guys after the game that if we lost this game, I would be really disappointed, but I would still have a lot of pride in this room because of the effort we gave.”
While that certainly helped, the Crusaders still struggled at the defensive end as Saint Joseph’s got the lead up to 12 at one point. That was when Willard changed everything by going with a press, which forced turnovers and got the energy back into the packed Hart Center.
“We had control of the game, we had the game at a nice, comfortable pace for us, then we had three turnovers and you let them get a little bit more excited than they should,” said Saint Joseph’s head coach Phil Martelli.
Summoning the tradition, losing the game wasn’t really an option. Sure, if the Crusaders lost it would not change the history of the program, and it wouldn’t take away from the special halftime ceremony. But make no mistake about it, losing the game would not have allowed most of the nearly 3,800 people at the Hart Center to leave feeling satisfied.
“With the way they were playing and out lack of cohesiveness on the defensive end, at that time I had to change something,” said Willard. “You have to roll the dice sometimes in games, and this was a time to roll the dice. I’m confident in our guys because I know they’re going to work hard.”
The Crusaders could have sealed the game in the final minute, especially after Colin Cunningham rebounded a missed free throw by Alex Vander Baan, who gutted out a double-double (13 points, 11 rebounds) as he plays on nothing more than adrenaline with his back in the shape it’s in. They needed the extra session after one more free throw left them up by two.
In the extra session, the Crusaders scored the first seven points before having to hang on for dear life. But they held on and completed the day with a win over a good team, and left Willard and the fans feeling like they honored the tradition that was evident at halftime.
