After title game run and valiant effort, Marist gives Dunne reason to find joy in struggle

John Dunne and Marist, despite coming up short in MAAC title game, walk away with no regrets after unlikely postseason run. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself.

Much of Mahatma Gandhi’s life predated the NCAA Tournament, and all of it certainly preceded the beginnings of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. But the revolutionary, as he always was, proved to be ahead of his time yet again in relation to the conference tournament run — and season at large — of Marist College over the past four months.

Entering the MAAC tournament on the heels of a 19-point loss to eventual champion Iona and 12-point setback to Quinnipiac whose final score was much closer than the game let on, not much was expected of Marist this past week in Atlantic City. But the Red Foxes silenced the doubters, marching through the field with upsets of Manhattan, Quinnipiac in a rematch, and Saint Peter’s to earn another shot at Iona in the championship game, the first time in league history a team had reached the final night from the No. 11 seed.

And once on the floor with the Gaels, Marist gave Iona all it could handle, and then some. The Red Foxes made Rick Pitino’s program earn its 14th all-time MAAC tournament crown, throwing every punch masterfully at the favorite for 36 minutes until they had nothing left to give in a flurry of offense that began and ended with Daniss Jenkins down the stretch. Still, the reflections in the aftermath were more appreciative of what happened than what could have been.

“I was trying to get more animated on the sideline to help them feed more off my energy,” head coach John Dunne would go on to say as Iona made its run as his Marist team ran out of steam. “The flip side of that is your turnovers are killing you and they need a little more poise, and then they probably need me to be a little more calm to calm them down on the offensive end. And I was trying to find that balance, because if I’m yelling at them over here, maybe that riles them up. There’s always something you do or say that you wish you could done better.”

“Their effort was great. And when I started getting riled up and animated on the sideline, they responded well. They gave it their all, man. I just couldn’t be more proud of them. They’re an awesome group and for five or six months, it was a pleasure coaching, even through losses. I’m doing this 30 years at this point, and teams come and go. I’ll always remember this team.”

Senior center Patrick Gardner, whose lone season in Division I concludes with a unique and head-turning campaign after toiling in the junior college and Division II ranks, was equally overcome with satisfaction after leaving it all on the floor.

“Very memorable,” he reflected. “I’m just thankful that I had the opportunity to play for this team. When I entered the transfer portal, he was the only coach to offer me, so I’m eternally grateful to him and my teammates. It’s sucks losing, but the fact that we won three times and no one believed in us as the 11 seed, I couldn’t be more proud.”

Over 17 years as a head coach, either at Saint Peter’s — where he extracted blood from a stone routinely before Shaheen Holloway did another brilliant job transforming the Peacocks into a winner — or Marist, where he now wraps up his fifth season, Dunne has traditionally been low-key and reticent. Therefore, it came as somewhat of a surprise to see the outpouring of raw emotion that followed.

“We won, together, three games,” he began with a proud tone before his voice started to crack. “We lost together tonight, but I will say this: They’re just an awesome group. I’ve said this publicly and I’m gonna say this over and over. I can’t be more appreciative of this group this year, the high character, the willingness to prepare through losses and get better. They bring the joy out of you to coach. You enjoy staying up until five in the morning to help prepare them for the next day because of their attitude.”

Dunne had spoken with conviction Friday after Marist emerged victorious in its semifinal matchup to set up Saturday’s title tilt. One week prior, the Red Foxes were thoroughly and systematically exposed at home by Quinnipiac in their regular season finale. Rather than play out the string in Atlantic City, he rallied his team together one more time, replaying the film from the 88-76 loss to the Bobcats in search of a way to improve. Not only did he and his players find one, he walked away with a better understanding of the group he oversees.

“We got beat up on senior night,” Dunne recalled. “Beat up. And I knew the only way we could come out in the tournament and compete was to go through that game and watch every horrible play. That’s a gamble because they could quit on you after losing two games in a row, but they didn’t because they’re high-character and they wanted to win. I took a gamble, and the gamble paid off. It’s not because of me, I just did my job. It’s because of them as people, man. They’re awesome. Everybody in that room is awesome.”

“I mean this so much. This is not coachspeak, I wouldn’t say this if it didn’t come from my heart: They never quit. We had losses in a row and people are down on you, and you hear the whispers around, and all you can control as a team is what is in the room. You cannot worry about all the noise that’s going around you, and then as a coach, you’re gonna work hard because it’s what your craft is, what your profession is and it’s what your passion is. But just because you’re passionate doesn’t mean that the team is going to buy in. They’re only gonna buy in if they’re super high-character and they’re not quitters, they’re not going to give in, and they believe in the coaches and believe in each other. And they did, man. They did, and there were a lot of opportunities for us to quit this year. And we never did. We never did.”