Giorgis, Marist scratch seven-year itch in NCAA Tournament return

An ecstatic Brian Giorgis handles postgame interview after his Marist team won 11th MAAC championship Saturday. (Photo by Mike Ferraro/Marist Athletics)

Seven years without something that defined one’s career is bound to make one wonder whether or not that experience can ever be relived.

Brian Giorgis would agree.

Once the unquestioned gold standard in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with nine consecutive conference tournament championships and a span of 10 league crowns in 11 years, Giorgis and the Red Foxes spent the past six seasons since their 2014 triumph in Springfield watching Quinnipiac join the MAAC from the Northeast Conference and claim four titles in five years before COVID-19 left a champion uncrowned last season. This past Saturday, the king reclaimed his throne, as Marist claimed its 11th MAAC trophy and automatic NCAA Tournament berth with a dominant victory over Saint Peter’s, a doormat in recent years now on a noticeable uptick under head coach Marc Mitchell.

After a roller coaster of a season that he likened to Space Mountain, in that “you’re in the dark and you don’t know when it’s going to drop,” the jubilant relief was ever-present on Giorgis’ affable and charismatic visage.

“I always wondered if it was going to happen again,” he admitted. “I kind of felt like Tony Bozzella when he was at Iona, where he could have won four or five if we weren’t there. You had a team like Quinnipiac come in, and Trish (head coach Tricia Fabbri) just does such a great job with the Quinnipiac program.”

“If we were a horse and we were win, place and show, we had a lot of them. But they kept working at it and people didn’t think that we had a chance, that we were part of the also-rans, and we went through the season and beat everybody.”

After losing the likes of Rebekah Hand, Alana Gilmer and Grace Vander Weide, a trio of seniors instrumental in stabilizing the Red Fox program and maintaining it in the MAAC’s upper echelon, Giorgis himself expressed doubt as to whether or not a group led by seniors Willow Duffell and Allie Best, plus an emerging supporting cast including Sarah Barcello and Trinasia Kennedy, who drew comparisons to past lockdown defenders Alisa Kresge and Leanne Ockenden, would be able to eclipse what he termed a distant fourth-place preseason ranking attributed partially to respect and prior history. But in typical Giorgis fashion, his unit delivered, and made a name for itself in its own way.

Brian Giorgis, doused with celebratory water by his Marist players after Red Foxes won first MAAC championship since 2014. (Photo by Mike Ferraro/Marist Athletics)

“This group was not to be denied,” he proudly declared. “They’re the most amazing group of people I’ve ever seen, they’re so special. I remember telling some of my closest friends that we’d be lucky to win two games this year because we lost six seniors and 80 percent of our scoring. To go 18-3 and put on the defensive performance we did — and the offense wasn’t bad, either — the kids just stuck to a game plan. I have the two best senior captains in the world, who just refuse to lose.”

Marist’s next stop is San Antonio, and a meeting with Louisville on a stage that may be unknown to any of the young ladies wearing red and white this Monday. For the man leading them onto the floor, and a coaching staff he effusively praises every chance he gets, it marks a significant and emphatic return to a level that was once a birthright, and the euphoria in this latest dance mirrors that of the program’s first back in 2004, potentially greater than that of the Sweet 16 appearance three years later.

“They’re all really special, first and foremost,” a laconic Giorgis interjected. “But this one and my very first one are probably the two best, because nobody expected it. I don’t think anybody was saying, ‘this year, you’re going to the NCAA Tournament.’ The first one, Marist had no respect. I think we were preseason eighth and finished as co-champions in the regular season and won it, and this one, we were picked a distant fourth and it was like, ‘wow.’ These guys are amazing, and to go through what they’ve been through, I think, makes this one as special as any that I’ve ever had.”