Demetre Roberts, FDU’s leading scorer, has anchored Knights’ resurgence, which continues Saturday in NEC tournament semifinal. (Photo by Ray Floriani/Daly Dose Of Hoops)
HACKENSACK, N.J. — Time and again, sometimes the greatest stories in this game are told and written somewhere out on the horizon, far away from the neon lights.
It is most often fitting, though, because beneath the glitz and glamour of the marquee names of the sport lie the unsung heroes, the purest tales of what makes college basketball so unique, so beloved.
Such was the case Wednesday, when Fairleigh Dickinson and St. Francis Brooklyn, conference rivals on either side of the Hudson River, met in a Northeast Conference tournament quarterfinal that defined March basketball in a way a North Carolina or a Kentucky never could.
For within FDU’s 83-75 victory, one in which the Knights led by double digits most of the evening before a scrappy St. Francis Brooklyn squad backed them onto the ropes in the final minutes, two separate stories were told in their own ways.
St. Francis, albeit coming up eight points short, got to the NEC tournament via one of the most circuitous paths possible. After the college moved out of its longtime home on Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights, it left the Terriers without a home gym after Thanksgiving. Finding a new, temporary home at the nearby Pratt Institute, was actually the least of head coach Glenn Braica’s worries, however.
“There were so many other things that happened that at times, I was like, ‘are you kidding me?’” Braica said as he wrapped up his 13th season at the helm. “It was unbelievable. Everybody looks at that, which in most cases, it’s something that’s difficult to deal with. I thought that was the easy part.”
“We were Ubering to practice and everything, the Ubers are coming late, we’re sitting around the gym for 20 minutes, an hour, but that — to me — was the easy part. Not knowing who you’ve got to play, to practice, was the difficult part. These guys were great, they really hung in there in a difficult situation. We’re going to learn from this, and we’re going to move on from it and be better.”
St. Francis Brooklyn's teams have traditionally been a reflection of Braica, a Greenpoint native who was a Terrier assistant coach, as well as Norm Roberts’ top lieutenant at St. John’s, before returning to Brooklyn in 2010. Tough, hard-nosed defense has been a hallmark of the Terrier program for the last decade-and-a-half, as has a next-man-up mentality that proved to be the glue that held this year’s unit together when Rob Higgins and Larry Moreno — two of the team’s best players — went down early in the NEC season due to injury.
“Honestly, when Rob and Larry went down, we basically played the whole league without them,” Braica recounted. “At the time they went down, they were probably our two best players and probably our two most experienced guys. So when we lost them, honestly, I didn’t know if we were gonna win another game. But guys like Zion (Bethea) and Di’Andre (Howell-South) and Trey (Quartlebaum), all these guys stepped up.”
“We went to Wagner, we might have been 0-3, and — on the road, national TV, without our two leading scorers — we go there and win, and all of a sudden, we’re like, ‘oh, wow!’ These guys hung in there all year. I thought our guys fought to the end.”
The veteran presence of Zion Bethea, who transferred from Hofstra after the passing of his father, aided St. Francis’ recalibration on top of providing much-needed stability in the backcourt with his ability to play on or off the ball.
“His high school coach, Jimmy Salmon, who I thank for trusting us with him, told me he was wired to score,” Braica said of Bethea. “And he was right. He just knows how to score. Number two, he told me he could play some point in a pinch, which he had to do for us because we didn’t have any left. Once he becomes a consistent two-way player, he’s going to be one of the best players in the league.”
Barring any movement in the transfer portal, the Terriers will be able to bring their entire roster back next season, something that excites Braica for the potential and upside his team provides, as well as a return to the normalcy of having full practices with a full contingent.
“We had a really interesting season,” he said, summarizing the past four months. “As far as injuries, etc., it’s been difficult to practice at times. We’ve had guys in and out of the lineup. I’m proud of the guys for stepping up when guys have been out. We’ve had guys step up into some difficult situations and do a great job. I think if a couple of things were different, we would have had an even better season, but I think if we can keep this group together, we’ve got a chance to be really, really good next year.”
***
Tobin Anderson was introduced as the new head coach at FDU last May, and quickly went to work building his team to make up for a traditionally late start to the offseason caused by the timing of his hire. Previously the head coach at Division II St. Thomas Aquinas College in Rockland County, Anderson won 209 games in nine years — and also a 32-point drubbing of St. John’s in a 2015 exhibition game that was notable for being Chris Mullin’s head coaching debut — while turning the Spartans into a local powerhouse behind a high-powered offense. Three of his guards at STAC — Demetre Roberts, Grant Singleton and Sean Moore — made the pilgrimage down the Palisades Parkway with him to Bergen County to ease the transition, but the grinder overseeing his maiden voyage in Division I still did not picture coming this far as part of the plan 10 months ago.
“I was just trying to get through the day,” Anderson quipped. “I was just trying to figure out what the heck was going on. I’m not a big vision guy, I’m not a big-picture guy, so at that point, we’re just trying to hopefully get a team together and have a chance to compete.”
“It’s been a fun year, it’s been a good year, we continue to get better. They’ve been great and they’ve been coachable, there’s been no issues at all. It’s a low-maintenance bunch of guys. We can yell at them, we can get on them, they still respond. They’re great.”
What makes FDU a matchup problem is its ability to turn what would normally be a disadvantage into an asset. One of the shortest rosters in Division I with no player in the rotation taller than 6-foot-6, the Knights use Roberts and Singleton to get out in transition, but also force forwards onto the perimeter to defend a team that shot 3-point field goals at a 37 percent clip in NEC play.
Now in the NEC tournament semifinals, where it will face Saint Francis University with a trip to the conference championship on the line, FDU is living in the moment and embracing the run that was somewhat unexpected when the Knights were picked sixth of nine in the preseason.
“We still know we’ve got to have a chip on our shoulder,” Moore cautioned. “We’re the underdogs in this tournament, so we’re just keeping our heads on straight, next practice. That’s really it.”
“The most fun years are the years where you’re not supposed to be very good,” Anderson said, offering an explanation for the pleasant turn of events. “When I was at St. Thomas, we always had expectations. We were supposed to win 25 games. People wouldn’t even count our wins until we got to like 25 or 30. They’re like, ‘oh, it’s the usual 25 wins,’ but it’s hard to win 25 games. This year, we didn’t pay attention to who picked us where, but I’m very proud of what we’ve done, of the guys. We want to keep winning. We’re two wins from an NCAA berth. Once you’re in position, you gotta take advantage of it.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.